Re: Basic questions on the kernel

[Burton Samograd <kruhft@hotmail.com>]

"Girish Kale" <girish.kale@nevisnetworks.com> writes:
> I have a few basic questions on the kernel performance:
> 
> 1) For embedded systems, even though standard linux may not have hard
> real-time performance unless real-time patch, low latency patch are
> applied, I would like to know if linux can give "deterministic"
> performance. Meaning can we be guaranteed that a particular process will
> be scheduled after a particular time. What are the these times or where
> do I find this data.

There is no performance "guarantee" for any version of linux kernel
other than the branches which are geared toward real time use (such as
RTLinux).  

> 2) When we are using linux on an embedded system, will there a memory
> management unit for this, since there will not be any swapping in/out of
> pages? Can we avoid a process from keeping on allocating memory thereby
> starving other applications?

You still need a memory managment unit for handling protection between
running processes. You might not need swap on your system, but you'll
need that.

As an aside, I've never been a fan of using something like linux (or
any unix for that matter) for embedded systems.  There are plenty of
other real-time operating systems which do the job better in a smaller
space, and a lot of times even lowly DOS is good enough for the job
(and it's even decent soft real-time as well).

> Any pointers to the above topics will be appreciated.

Try searching for 'embedded linux' on google and you'll find some more
good information I'm sure.

-- 
burton samograd
kruhft@kruhft.dyndns.org
http://kruhftwerk.dyndns.org

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