Real-Time Linux

Some links to RT Linux resources

• RT Linux (Yodaiken, NMT), but see their new FSMLabs web site.
• RTAI, another view of RTL.
• LLB:
  • Berlin Linux Lab Project
    • linux-gpib (Linux GPIB driver)
    • GPIB, Jens Toerring's driver
  • KURT: The KU Real-Time Linux. (Douglas Niehaus, U. Kansas)
  • UMN Linux Lab Project (with a GPIB library and other IEEE-488 commands)
    Check out their box
• Cyclades; we use their multi-port I/O card (a 4 port PCI Cyclades-Y). Other serial I/O:
  • Serial Programming Guide for POSIX Operating Systems
  • The Linux Serial Programming HOWTO
• Embedded Systems Bibliography
• RT-linux
• Airborne Remote Sensing with RT-Linux (see also their Feb 1999 LJ article)
• POSIX.1b (Markus Kuhn: A vision for Linux 2.2; POSIX.1b Compatibility and Real-Time Support.
• Sokrates - RT-Linux
• SampLin, Scientific Data Acquisition, Visualization and Process Control software
• Linux-Embedded and linuxembedded
• fiasco: a micro-kernel with RT capabilities.
• DSP Shell Project
• EPICS, Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System.
• Scheduling:
  • QNX Scheduler
  • QNXsched : Linux Kernel patches to supply QNX scheduling
  • QLinux, patches for the kernel to aid time-critical multimedia applications.
• Other misc references:
  • parapin: a Parallel Port Pin Programming Library for Linux.

WASP and RT-Linux

Progress reports:

• 15-apr-98 : I've just finished installing all the drivers (GPIB, PIO) and got the software working under regular linux, and of course, a polling PIO device isn't reliable under regular linux. Although the new experimental QNX scheduler works quite well in single observing mode (only using PIO), it is not working well in the calibration routines which need both the GPIB and the PIO to be active at the same time. Really missing is a QNX scheduling API interface on the programming level, so certain threads can be executed at QNX levels. Also tried classical interrupt drivers, but they also don't work well enough in real-time. So, we really have to use RT Linux.
• 31-oct-98 : Simply installing a RT interrupt driver (as opposed to a normal interrupt driven kernel module) worked very much as advertised. Although the lag-readouts are assembled in real-time mode, and passed back to the user via a FIFO, simple polling I/O that is also needed and handled through separate FIFO's appear to have some latencies and/or cause some syncronization problems on the connected WASP machine.
• 15-dec-98 Our 1998 ADASS poster presentation.
• 23-dec-98 : The system as a whole appears to work fine, although some fine-tuning remains to be done. Observing at CSO Jan 16-26 (1999) was quite successfull.
• mar-99: Andy Harris and Christian Holler took WASP up to Mt Wilson, and got some interesting results with Townes' far-infrared receivers. WASP will run in ISI mode for these experiments.
• 10/20-apr-00 : WASP2 for an observing run at CSO
• fall 2001/spring 2002: new WASP2 software, developed by Rauch, Teuben, Pound and Amarnath. Here is the doxygen generated source code documentation.