Embedded linux status
Revision as of 10:06, 17 November 2008 by WillNewton (talk | contribs) (→Industry organizations or projects)
Here is an outline for a presentation on the status of embedded Linux:
This is essentially User:Tim Bird's private collection of interesting notes about the status of embedded Linux. It tends to get updated right before a Linux conference.
Contents
Kernel
2.6.24:
* kernel markers * security modules are gone
Interesting patches:
* latency trace system (mcount support in the kernel, with multiple tracers) * Steven Rostedt's isolation and generalization of RT-preempts latency-trace system * mem_notify - allows processes to avoid the OOM killer * see http://lwn.net/Articles/266361/ * latencytop support (going into 2.6.25??) * see http://lwn.net/Articles/266153/ * kpagemap - finally accepted into 2.6.25?? (yes according to Matt Mackall)
Bootup Time
- pre-linking
- XIP
- (see filesystem work)
- KFT
- embedded bootchart
Memory Management
System Size
- SLUB vs. SLAB vs. SLOB
- in 2.6.23 both SLUB and SLOB received some updates. Nick Piggins wants to know what the size difference is between SLOB And SLUB. SLUB is on a track to replace SLAB. (Although there is still ongoing discussion about performance regressions of SLUB on some database loads, on LKML beginning of Oct.)
- [give SLOB vs. SLUB size numbers]
- x86 SLOB yields 180K more runtime memory than SLOB
- arm SLOB yields ??? more runtime memory than SLOB
- Linux-tiny revival
- squashfs - will it ever get mainlined
Security
- smack is accepted into the Linux kernel
- SELinux vs. AppArmor, TomoyoLinux and other path-based systems
- Crispin Cowan (and other AppArmour developers) were layed off from Novell
File Systems
- Yaffs
- squashfs
- cramfs
- jffs2
- logfs
licensing
- broo-ha-ha over GPL 3.0 has died down
- kernel safe for now, what about libs??
- glibc 2.6.1 Release note (http://sourceware.org/ml/libc-announce/2007/msg00001.html)
- quote on LGPLv3:
The 2.6 and 2.6.1 releases of the GNU C Library are licensed under the LGPL version 2.1, and GPL version 2.1 for the non-library programs included, or any later version. This means you are free to redistribute this version under the terms of the LGPL version 3 or the GPL 3, as well under as the version 2.1 terms of the 2.6 release. We expect that the next non-bug-fix release of the C Library will migrate to a newer LGPL version.
Graphics
Audio
middleware
- DLNA summit
Tools
- Tracing
- Kprobes
- SystemTap
- generic trace layer
- posted by David Wilder, in Sep 2007
- Looks like a successor to relayfs (or abstraction on top of relayfs)
- See http://lwn.net/Articles/249526/
- Patch at: http://lwn.net/Articles/249868/
- Markers
- Added to Linus' tree on Oct. 19. (Should be in 2.6.24)
- Toolchains
Distributions
- OpenEmbedded
- Embedded Debian
- PokyLinux
- Fedora for ARM
- Ubuntu Mobile - really a stripped-down desktop distro
Industry organizations or projects
- LiMo
- Feb 4 - announced their Linux platform
- see this LIMO press release
- CELF
- new ARM UMPC initiative: