From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <44DA0227.3050700@domain.hid> Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:41:27 +0200 From: Jan Kiszka MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: [Xenomai-help] WG: Xenomai vs. RTAI References: <5D63919D95F87E4D9D34FF7748CE2C2A46DE23@domain.hid> In-Reply-To: <5D63919D95F87E4D9D34FF7748CE2C2A46DE23@domain.hid> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enigA2A151662E6ED26DB73C6FBE" Sender: jan.kiszka@domain.hid List-Id: Help regarding installation and common use of Xenomai List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Roderik_Wildenburg@domain.hid Cc: xenomai@xenomai.org This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enigA2A151662E6ED26DB73C6FBE Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Roderik_Wildenburg@domain.hid wrote: > Is there a summary of the advantages of Xenomai vs. RTAI ? > I asked Google and my mail archive about this question but wasn?t very = succesful. Probably, because there hasn't been an open and broader discussion on a public forum yet. > As far as I know, very much which is true for Xenomai is true for RTAI = too (userspace realtime, mixing realtime and linux systemcalls, multiple = skins). RTAI used to know skins as well - due to the existence of Xenomai or RTAI/fusion in earlier versions. Now it only knows its own API in its various revisions, RTDM (which seems to be in a good shape according to the feedback of RTnet users), and a POSIX wrapping layer (currently gains a rework/fixing). > I did not work very much with RTAI (just with kernelspace applications = and not with LXRT), so I don?t know the disatvantages/advantages of RTAI = and its prakticability regarding user space support, mixing systemcalls, = =2E.. >=20 > Perhaps somebody with background in both worlds (probably most of you ?= ) could give me some arguments why Xenomai is the better choice (especial= ly practicability of the user space support is interesting for me; with X= enomai it is very easy to manage is it the same with LXRT ?). Well, you already know most of my arguments, but I will try to repeat them for all readers (and Google...). Hope I will stay objective, but everyone should recall that I'm fairly biased now. :) o Code organisation and style: You may recall my example of the scheduler cores, but I think everyone can repeat it with arbitrary code: pick two files from both projects that deal with a similar topic, compare their styles and then try to grab roughly what they do (start e.g. with [1] and [2], then step down the layers). Ask yourself where you would prefer to trace down problems if you ever have to (bugs can be everywhere). o Development model: RTAI's development is widely, today almost exclusively driven by the immediate needs of its maintainer. Xenomai is aiming at a far broader usage, including a smooth exploitation of upcoming preempt-rt. As long as we used RTAI (2001-2005), we always faced quality issues. I think I'm allowed to grumble here as we (University of Hannover) actively worked on fixing them over the years. Unfortunately, continuous changes on the RTAI core didn't let things converge, so we finally migrated our robots to Xenomai. I'm twiddling thumbs since then - ok, only virtually... ;) And this is also attracting significantly more core contributors to Xenomai. "Human resources" are most precious (not only) in this domain, and I consider Xenomai in a far better position here (though we will likely need additional resources in the future given its good growth rate). o Architecture support: I predict RTAI will stay locked on x86 and maybe x86_64 (once we have a recent I-pipe patch for that arch). That tightly relates to the points above. No one is in sight to start an update of, e.g., PPC over latest RTAI. Recently someone worked on an ARM update, but only picked an outdated Adeos patch as platform and still struggled with getting things clean on the RTAI side. In contrast, Xenomai is in use over PPC[64] for quite a while now, some ARM subarchs as well, we have Blackfin that is also officially advertised by Analog Devices, and IA64, more should follow. There must be some reason. o Technical features: As far as I can tell, there are two major RTAI features that are to some degree advantageous compared to Xenomai: immediate IRQ dispatching and direct syscall vectoring. It was claimed that they have noticeable latency advantages, specifically on low-end. My last comparison of RTAI-3.4 from CVS and Xenomai 2.2 from SVN a few weeks ago showed about 10% better worst-case latencies of RTAI under load on an oldish Pentium 133 MHz. Given the lost cleanness of design, I'm absolutely convinced that gain is not worth its price. E.g., direct syscalls seem to be one reason why gdb is not always working with LXRT processes. But I'm biased, please do your own tests as well. Since the requested major modification of the I-pipe model (design-wise, not code-wise) got rejected for good reasons, there was no more feedback from RTAI at least on this vital commonly used component. We've recently identified an issue of the x86-2.4 I-pipe patch. RTAI just solved it on its own instead of informing the Adeos group so that it can be fixed for all users. Due to this lacking cooperation, RTAI can only try to catch up the pace that is made by Adeos/I-pipe today. Future kernels will require evolution of I-pipe and its users (e.g. adoption to the GTOD infrastructure). It's logical now that Xenomai will continue to be first in adopting this. And then there is the flexible skin construction kit under Xenomai. >=20 > And now something completly different, something more idelogical ;-): > Wouldn?t a bulletin board or a WIKI be a better form of dicussion respe= ctively knowledge base than a mail archive. The background for this quest= ion is, that allways when I start a new stupid question I can?t be sure w= hether this question hasn?t already been dealt with, as my mail archive i= sn?t complete and also not very good searchable. Full ack. I've brought up the topic "wiki" a few times as I think it would be helpful for several purposes. Bruno, are you listening? Would it be feasible to set up a wiki on xenomai.org? Jan [1]http://www.rts.uni-hannover.de/xenomai/lxr/source/ksrc/skins/native/se= m.c#L347 [2]http://www.rts.uni-hannover.de/rtai/lxr/source/base/ipc/sem/sem.c#L562= --------------enigA2A151662E6ED26DB73C6FBE Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFE2gInniDOoMHTA+kRAnpgAJ9QfWDDHFF3715Lk6G+oT4zGudxSQCePYlV NSE1DzJkEJEf00lZg/2/aMw= =94jg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigA2A151662E6ED26DB73C6FBE--