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Boeing
zeros in on Linux for military aircraft
'You're in the army now... '
By Stephen Shankland
writes for CNET News.com
Boeing
has awarded Wind River Systems a contract to embed its version
of Linux into a new military aircraft, the company plans to
announce Monday along with a new batch of products built around
the open source operating system.
Boeing
will use Wind River's Linux to run surveillance and other
mission computing tasks in the P-8A Multi-Mission Maritime
Aircraft, a 737 modified for US Navy uses such as finding
submarines and other tasks, said Chip Downing, senior aerospace
and defence marketing manager at Wind River. Linux won't be
used for navigation or aircraft control systems.
Linux
has made inroads into embedded computing systems such as networking
equipment and mobile phones but Wind River is trying to expand
its presence in other embedded computing markets such as aerospace
and military applications. The strategy is a turnaround for
the company, which until 2003 disparaged Linux in favour of
its own proprietary operating system, VxWorks.
It
is bridging the divide between the operating systems with
its Workbench programming tool software. The company charges
a company $4,000 to $11,000 for each developer's copy of the
software. However, where Wind River charges a royalty fee
for devices using VxWorks, it doesn't with Linux, said Glenn
Seiler, senior manager for Linux Platforms at Wind River.
Also
on Monday, Wind River plans to announce it's released 300,000
lines of open source code to Eclipse Foundation, a project
for programming tools. The software should improve features
for programming with the C or C++ languages, debugging, and
running software on embedded computing systems.
Wind
River is also releasing version 1.3 of several products, including
its Platform for Consumer Devices, Linux Edition. That version
is specifically designed for smart phones.
Seiler
said: "You can get a complete Linux distribution - kernel,
driver, networking, file system - in about 4MB of memory."
The
new version, based on version 2.6.14 of the Linux kernel,
is a significant improvement over the first that was introduced
in late 2005, he said. Specifically, it includes an update
with many more "mutexes" - interruption points where
the operating system can quickly be redirected to service
a high-priority task.
Stephen
Shankland writes for CNET News.com
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