A Conversation With Linus Torvalds, Who Built The World's Most Robust Operating System And Gave It A

"World's most robust operating system?"

What?

 

It is. The whole world runs on it. The important bits.
Mrk

 

I tend to think there are more life-critical embedded systems than servers in the world, that those systems are more important, and that most of them are not running Linux... Which is probably a good thing. If they did, the world might look more like Die Hard 4 (to paraphrase something you once said).

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. But it is a huge, monolithic, general-purpose OS kernel with lots and lots of bugs. It is very robust for what it is, but I believe there are lots of applications it's not suited for.

 

Linux is everywhere from life-critical embedded systems, to PoS devices, to cars. This isn't the full blown Linux kernel, you know that, right? It is compiled with only what's required.

 

Most of embedded systems are Linux.
Mrk

 

BSD is also a monolithic kernel, just not as huge

 

I've been out of the embedded industry for awhile, but I'm inclined to think: the more "demanding" the application (hard real-time requirements, safety critical systems, weapons/defense systems, other mission critical systems) and certification requirements, the more likely you are to see a traditional RTOS at its heart. In some cases, a mixed or hybrid solution involving a traditional RTOS as well as a commercially offered Linux derivative specifically geared for embedded applications. Then for other applications, the traditional RTOS is dispensed with and only an embedded Linux variant is used. A commercial off the shelf solution that has already been through related certifications, which has a track record, provided by a vendor that meets various testing/documentation requirements and is known for support, etc wherever possible I would imagine.

If there are any embedded guys here, I'd be interested to know what you are seeing and working with.

 

Even without umpteen thousand drivers, Linux is not very resilient. A driver crash will usually bring down the whole kernel. This is sometimes acceptable on desktops and servers, but not always on embedded systems.

@Mrkvonic: what sort of embedded systems? Smart phones yes, cell phones often no. Mine uses on the Java ME platform. Ordinary cell phones are still very popular, especially in the developing world IIRC. And what about 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers? Those are ubiquitous, you can find at least one in any SATA hard drive; and when they're running an OS it would probably be something like Contiki.

@TheWindBringeth: I'd be interested as well...

 

Well, if you wanna go down to tiny tiny controllers, it can get tricky. But remote management systems for servers, navigation devices, smartphones are you mentioned, network equipment, medical devices like CAT and MRI scanners, a fair bunch of scientific research devices. It also depends when the hardware was designed. Lots of old stuff will surely have something that's not Linux nor Windows. You should also look at hardware developed after 2000 and see the percentage of Linux there - as well as the overall trend.

Mrk

 

i will not run any Windows on my car : " BSOD, your system need to be rebooted , in the meanwhile you loose control of your car's embed computing system; sorry for the incovenien.....CRASH "