From: Jennifer Finlinson <jennifer@lineo.com>
Subject: Lineo Participates in Open Source Efforts
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 11:18:00
To: lwn@lwn.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



Real-Time Application Interface (RTAI)
for Linux v. 1.3 Released


Herndon, Virginia - April 18, 2000 -- The Real Time Application Interface
(RTAI) development team led by Paolo Mantegazza of Dipartimento di Ingegneria
Aerospaziale Politecnico di Milano (DIAPM), today announced the release
of RTAI, version 1.3. In the open source spirit, this new version provides
enhanced capabilities and services which simultaneously extend the ability
of RTAI to meet the needs of complex real-time applications and make it
easier for developers to write and debug those applications. RTAI is available
under the Free Software Foundation's LGPL open source license.

RTAI now includes dynamic memory allocation, a /proc interface, an enhanced
LXRT-Informed (LinuX RT) module and PERL bindings for soft real-time task
development.  

Dynamic Memory Allocation
The dynamic memory allocation development was led by Steve Papacharalambous
of Zentropix, which was recently acquired by Lineo, Inc, the leading developer
of embedded Linux system software. Now real-time applications running
under RTAI are able to dynamically allocate and free memory from a pool
using the management module's standard API. Previously, dynamic memory
allocation has not been possible in any of the real-time Linux kernels,
including RTAI and RTLinux, and calls to allocate and free memory from
real-time tasks had to be avoided. Thus real-time applications were required
to allocate memory usage before entering real time. 

/proc Interface Development
The new "/proc" interface development, led by Papacharalambous of Zentropix,
shows the current status for critical elements of the real-time services
and features. With this interface, users can access information on the
state of the application and RTAI real-time service kernel modules, including
the scheduler, FIFOs, interrupts, and memory manager.  

LXRT-Informed 
Development of the LXRT-Informed module, led by Pierre Cloutier of Poseidon
Controls, Inc., provides enhanced real-time operations from standard user
space. LXRT is an important feature because it allows the user to develop
a real-time task under the memory protection of Linux by allowing the
use of RTAI's API from standard user space. Additionally, LXRT allows
dynamic switching of tasks between the hard/soft real-time modes from
within an application. In an effort to facilitate code development, enhancement
s have also been added to ensure that the system recovers gracefully after
the crash of a Linux task with a real-time LXRT component.

PERL Bindings
The PERL bindings development, led by Stuart Hughes also of Zentropix,
gives developers the ability to program in a soft real-time environment
from the PERL scripting language.  This feature allows Linux developers
to use the intuitive and familiar PERL scripting language to create, destroy
and schedule real-time tasks which run using the RTAI API within user
space as soft real-time tasks. It also provides the ability to learn the
basics of real-time programming without the need to become intimate with
the programming languages or compilers.

Today's RTAI v 1.3 provides a competitive and quickly growing list of
features including:

· POSIX 1003.1.c compatibility
· Traditional RTOS IPCs including:  Semaphores, mailboxes, mutexes, condition
variables, FIFOs, shared memory and RPCs
· Dynamic Memory Allocation
· PERL Bindings 
· /proc interface 
· LXRT
· UniProcessor and SMP support
· FPU support
· One-shot and periodic schedulers

The availability of RTAI's services and features, with debug and development
tools, combine to provide what many believe to be the foremost implementation
of real-time Linux. Further information on RTAI (v 0.7) can be found in
the April issue of Linux Journal.

About Real-time Linux http://www.realtimelinux.org
This site provides a comprehensive resource for information, discussion,
links, documentation, example source code, and all things real-time under
Linux.

About RTAI (http://www.rtai.org)
Conceived in 1996 at the DIAPM in Milano, Italy, the Linux Real-Time Applicatio
n Interface provides a preemptive and deterministic hard real-time environment
for Linux.  RTAI is licensed under the LGPL and can be downloaded from
http://www.rtai.org 

About Poseidon Controls Inc.  (http://www.poseidoncontrols.com)
Founded in 1984, the company focuses on developing NPCS, a QNX 2 real
time process control and SCADA software package. Poseidon Controls are
system integrators specialized in applications that require complex communicati
ons system design.

About Zentropix http://www.zentropix.com
Founded in August, 1997, Zentropix focuses on RealTime Linux and has offices
in the US and UK.  By providing a validated and configuration managed
version of RealTime Linux and Zentropix' development tools, combined with
support, custom engineering, and training, Zentropix meets the needs of
software developers and corporations, who are now developing embedded
and real-time applications.  In February 2000, Zentropix was acquired
by Lineo, Inc., an embedded Linux system software developer headquartered
in Lindon, Utah.

###

Press Only Contact:
Jennifer Finlinson
Public Relations Manager
jennifer@lineo.com
Tel: 801-426-5001x264