4.10. Migrating from RTOS (VRTXsa) to RTAI-Linux

• Differences
  • VRTXsa and other proprietary OSes come from one source, whereas Linux bears more resemblance to a toolbox with tools from different sources.
  • Get support from knowledgable people you choose yourself - not only from vendor (i.e. take your car to a garage, not to the vendor)

• Advantages
  • Linux is supported on large number of systems. Support can not be abandoned because all sources are available.
  • Build environment is the same as target environment
  • Huge amount of programs available (and protocols supported)
  • Very good compiler suite for C/C++ (GCC) (ever traced a compiler bug?)

• Disadvantages
  • Different API (although the Xenomai project aimed at VRTX API emulation)
  • Two-level structure, i.e. real-time tasks in kernel space, rest in user space