The Rise Of QNX 163
QNX might not be new, but SirTimbly is right about it making a stir. Max von H. writes: "Audrey, the household net appliance from 3Com/ergo has been officially released, and there's even an official site on which you can smile at the design. The beast runs QNX/Neutrino, as stated in this ZDNet story. The sweet thing is it can sync with two PalmOS devices, which can make a geek couple's life much easier without having to fumble with a real PC. Say what you want, but Audrey could possibly be successful since anybody can use it, and 3Com has shown a simple system rules when it comes to do simple things."
And no mention of QNX is complete without a reference to the QNX demo disk, which packs a pretty amazing set of features onto a floppy. Here too, it's free, but not Free.
Re:QNX SUCKS (Score:1)
Re:Why can't Linux do that? (Score:2)
I still dream that something will replace X but it is looking hopeless now...
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:3)
I don't suppose you've ever used Linux, since lsmod, rmmod, insmod, depmod, modprobe are all parts of the wonderful world of mapping things dynamically into kernele space. With it, I can have hot plug PCMCIA, USB, and other devices without having to have this monolitihic kernel you decry. There's even a Microkernel Linux [mklinux.org] which adds the features that the HURD and QNX have, that Linux doesn't.
QNX is targetted at embedded devices. That tight focus lets it get away with not having support for 64gb of ram, scaling to 8-way SMP, NUMA, swap space, implementation of device drivers for PC and non-PC hardware of all kinds, and other requirements of being a kernel that can be embedded [uclinux.org] in devices lacking a memory controller, to massive SMP systems [slashdot.org], to computing clusters [scyld.com].
"QNX is much more suitable for PDAs and otehr small systems than is Linux."
Ever heard the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none?" Linux is the swiss-army knife kernel. It may not be as good for skinning as a proper hunting knife, but it also has a saw, a can opener, a magnifying glass, and many other useful tools that you might need some day. Think about it.
--
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:1)
HOSTS 99 06-17-98 10:15p HOSTS
PROTOCOL 441 10-07-94 5:25p PROTOCOL
SERVICES 2,665 06-13-95 1:14p SERVICES
WIN BAT 65 06-26-98 6:45p WIN.BAT
BYE CMD 930 05-09-98 8:22p BYE.CMD
LOGIN CMD 3,531 06-26-98 6:55p LOGIN.CMD
COMMAND COM 54,619 05-20-98 7:23p COMMAND.COM
REG DAT 352 06-26-98 6:12p REG.DAT
WINSOCK DLL 159,744 07-24-95 5:09p WINSOCK.DLL
SHELL DLL 40,944 11-01-93 3:11a SHELL.DLL
TOOLHELP DLL 14,128 11-01-93 3:11a TOOLHELP.DLL
CTL3DV2 DLL 27,200 08-09-96 2:30a CTL3DV2.DLL
COMMDLG DLL 97,936 11-01-93 3:11a COMMDLG.DLL
SYSTEM DRV 2,304 11-01-93 3:11a SYSTEM.DRV
TIMER DRV 4,192 05-22-98 11:55p TIMER.DRV
VGA DRV 73,200 11-01-93 3:11a VGA.DRV
LMOUSE DRV 12,928 11-01-93 3:11a LMOUSE.DRV
SB20SND DRV 16,176 02-16-93 12:38p SB20SND.DRV
SBFM DRV 12,752 05-19-92 2:10p SBFM.DRV
SOUND DRV 3,440 11-01-93 3:11a SOUND.DRV
TWCOMM DRV 11,760 09-16-94 12:16p TWCOMM.DRV
KEYBOARD DRV 7,568 11-01-93 3:11a KEYBOARD.DRV
NOTEPAD EXE 31,936 05-01-90 3:00a NOTEPAD.EXE
TELNET EXE 57,216 03-31-98 6:54p TELNET.EXE
TCPMAN EXE 144,384 07-24-95 5:09p TCPMAN.EXE
TASKMAN EXE 3,744 05-22-98 9:46p TASKMAN.EXE
WINIRC EXE 96,768 03-16-95 9:01p WINIRC.EXE
FTP EXE 53,248 06-30-95 2:24a FTP.EXE
CLOCK EXE 16,416 05-22-98 9:45p CLOCK.EXE
TETRIS EXE 40,000 06-22-98 12:58a TETRIS.EXE
PROGMAN EXE 115,312 11-01-93 3:11a PROGMAN.EXE
DOSX EXE 32,682 11-01-93 3:11a DOSX.EXE
GDI EXE 220,800 11-01-93 3:11a GDI.EXE
KRNL386 EXE 76,400 11-01-93 3:11a KRNL386.EXE
USER EXE 264,096 01-07-98 8:51p USER.EXE
MRMIND EXE 20,464 06-22-98 1:08a MRMIND.EXE
LABPOP EXE 298,128 02-09-96 9:45a LABPOP.EXE
SERIFE FON 57,936 11-01-93 3:11a SERIFE.FON
SSERIFE FON 64,544 11-01-93 3:11a SSERIFE.FON
VGAFIX FON 5,360 11-01-93 3:11a VGAFIX.FON
VGAOEM FON 5,168 11-01-93 3:11a VGAOEM.FON
VGASYS FON 7,280 11-01-93 3:11a VGASYS.FON
COUR FOT 1,318 04-04-98 2:04a COUR.FOT
MAIN GRP 6,973 06-26-98 7:12p MAIN.GRP
SYSTEM INI 1,143 06-26-98 6:25p SYSTEM.INI
WINIRC INI 157 06-26-98 7:01p WINIRC.INI
CLOCK INI 90 06-26-98 6:38p CLOCK.INI
WIN INI 3,861 06-26-98 6:37p WIN.INI
TRUMPWSK INI 1,066 06-26-98 7:02p TRUMPWSK.INI
PROGMAN INI 122 06-26-98 7:12p PROGMAN.INI
QNX SUCKS (Score:1)
Re:Some factual errors.... (Score:1)
Re:QNX firewall (Score:1)
Anyone who has probably knows why I'm interested.
Why, so you can use your digital camera as a firewall? I guess since Doom has been ported to Digita, this would be a logical next step. Plug a USB hub and two USB NICs into the camera's USB port, and away you go!
It would be an excellent development environment... making snapshots would be a piece of cake!
--
Really Free Real-Time Operating Systems (Score:2)
Re:BeOS OEM problems is all PR (Score:1)
Ah well, I guess you have to have something to do when you get bored in a reactor or dam.
-lx
Re:Ooops... (Score:1)
If you had taken the time to read, you would have noticed that I was responding to a guy promoting XINU, whose homepage has *not* been updated in 2 years.
Ranessin
Hmmm.. (Score:1)
I am a huge BSD fan myself but people almost always never even give Lineo a second glance. They did a whole lot of very cool things to get Linux embedded.
They use A reduced libc (greatly;), Ash for the shell
The kernel is tightened up and is much smaller.
It comes with two graphics drawing utilities that are all text based for doing any kind of graphics stuff.
For embedded apps I do not believe Lineo is as good as QNX this is absed on my limited experience with the capabilities of the two OS'
Anyhow
Jeremy
Growing up in Ontario in the Eighties.... (Score:1)
M
Re:I could see it, but (Score:1)
There just isn't that much left to dazzle us with.
How about something on the order of a 10uS* hard realtime latency? Or a microkernel architecture which blows away kernel modules?
Don't get me wrong; I'm a big Linux fan, but RTLinux (and the various other realtime variants) don't hold a candle to what QNX can do in that arena. QNX is x86 only though, and the various uClinuxes are for tons of different processors, much cheaper processors.
* - I believe this is the number. I don't think I'm far off with this number if it is wrong.
Some factual errors.... (Score:5)
Secondly, it was developed at the University of Waterloo [uwaterloo.ca] in Ontario, Canada and then spun off into a company.
Thirdly, it is not *just* an embedded OS, its most prominant use (atleast to Ontario and Quebec elemenrtary and secondary school students some 10 years ago) was on the PC powering that evil Unisys [unisys.com] companies line of diskless 80186 based network computers called the Icon of which our schools had ungodly amounts of. QNX is also used quite extensively in the Canadian Armed Forces and can be used as a desktop OS.
-- iCEBaLM
It's so good that companies are leaving QNX ... (Score:1)
For reference though, they have two different OSes, QNX (the one the demo disk and the i-opener are based on), and Nuetrino.
Linux and the BSDs are much more capable, as are several other IA OSes including WindRiver and BeIA. (BeIA has actually been chosen for several next generation web appliances already and was demonstrated in Whirpools refigerators with the webpad).
Re:This is NOT a waste of time (Score:2)
If you mean Drag and Drop, it does have it. At least, it's documented in the Photon programmer's manual; so if it isn't there right now, it's coming soon.
Dept. Title (Score:1)
Tim, at first I didn't get it, but now I see how clever you really are!
"Mmm... DoughNIX!"
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
GPL IS A VIRUS!? (Score:1)
me too! (Score:1)
QNX is also good for... (Score:1)
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
________________________________________
holy hot damn (Score:1)
From the Package Mgr, I am currently downloading perl, pine, the quake3 engine and dozens of other *nixy GNU stuff that abounds.
My screen resolution is at 1280x1024 32bit, and the text and gui elements are amazingly crisp and tight. I didn't have to do any configuring other than choosing a resolution and color depth.
I was able to browse directly to a fat32 partition and play an mp3 within 30 seconds of gui bootup. It didn't detect my usb mouse though it is running a usb enumerator. I do have crappy usb on this mobo thouhg, so mileage may vary. this is the sweetest thing I'VE EVER SEEN.
:)Fudboy
Reminder (Score:1)
I love to play with QNX and such...But it's wonderful windowing interface is always a sad reminder of how slow/bad X really is in *nix. And *nix serves as a reminder of how bad hardware support is in QNX (or BeOs for that matter). I am left with the same issue I have with the political candidates...I like 50% of what each one says, and deplore the other 50%.
Re:Is it portable? (Score:1)
Re:QNX... (Score:1)
reason it IS making inroads is because it is free
No it isn't, at least not for commercial applications. It's a free eval and to dink around with, which is good enough for me.
Even in the commercial aspect it is a lot freer than most alternatives because it is royalty free, which is a big bonus.
Re:QNX over rated (Score:1)
Re:Some factual errors.... (Score:1)
Yeah, and the kicker was that with the ICON2's doing DOS emulation, a Ctrl-Z at the right time would kick you out to a QNX command prompt with fairly high priveledges. Resulted in my first attempts at cracking (or at least it exercised my exploratory nature).
Actually, I think it's Canadian... (Score:3)
I used QNX about twelve years ago. It used to power an educational computer called the Icon. It was actually a decent Unix-like system.
Anyway, it's definately not developed by 3COM. I think the real developer was Quantum Systems in Waterloo Ontario Canada.
Re:LynxOS (Score:1)
Re:QNX over rated (Score:1)
If they've added new drivers, I think that's worthy of updating the homepage
Ranessin
Re:Actually, I think it's Canadian... (Score:2)
Whoops. I just checked www.qnx.com. Looks like they're in Kanata Ontario and they're called QNX Software Systems Ltd.
Re:Some factual errors.... (Score:1)
powering that evil Unisys companies line of diskless 80186 based network computers called the Icon
I've got a couple of them I'd like to hack on. When I ripped it apart I noticed the 80186 and the token ring-ish network and whatnot but I've been totally unsuccessful in getting schematics or i/o maps of the damn things. Unisys doesn't acknowledge they exist.
Does anyone have any information on them?
Umm... (Score:4)
QNX was NOT developped by 3com, and I quote: &The Ontario, Canada-based company was founded 20 years ago as a real-time operating system vendor."
At least get you facts straight and make it look like you actually read and understood the article before you post.
Re:QNX 4/Neutrino and SMP (Score:1)
Check out http://www.qnxstart.com [qnxstart.com] for lots more qnx stuff and downloads.
Re:Sucky attitude (Score:1)
QNX firewall (Score:2)
Anyone who has probably knows why I'm interested.
Embedded OSes (Score:2)
Yet another thing is that the older embedded OSes were multi-thread, not multi-process. Again plus and minus, thread context switch is usually noticebly fast than process context switch. I've seen a number of programmers that learned in the DEC OS or Unix environment get tripped up in just-multi-thread embedded jobs, forgetting that all tasks share global variables and system resources.
And a fully linked OS+application tends to come up much faster than a "bootable" OS. Most people would be annoyed if their TV, microwave, or cell phone took as long to boot as their desktop *NIX - MSWindows isn't even in the same state much less the ballpark.
wonder if..... (Score:1)
does it have native support for the cue cat?
Re:gave it a try, not horribly impressed (Score:4)
You mentioned BeOS only now getting support from vendors and this is in fact mentioned on benews.com or one of the other beos sites. I am impressed with qnx overall as it has been a good embedded OS for many years now. It probably has more viability controlling robots in a high tech assembly plant than as a full blown desktop OS though. We'll just have to wait and see what comes of it.
Rhymes with lee-nucks? (Score:1)
HA HA ...HA
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Some factual errors.... (Score:2)
The second was called "Icon Look" which was a prettier version, a little more secure and powerful.
I remember playing hours and hours of many games on those things, the cargo ship trader game, money market stock style game, and of course all our favorite was the robot game where you build a course and a robot and ran him around the course hoping to break him, but they removed that one for some reason....
-- iCEBaLM
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
int[] bits = {1,0,1,0,0,1,1,0,1,0};
for (int i = 0; ibits.length; i++)
{
result = 1;
result += bits[i];
}
cout result;
Aieeeeee! he's the antichrist!
Re:almost (Score:1)
QNX in the real world (Score:1)
Re:QNX firewall (Score:1)
How well locked-down is the QNX configuration on iOpeners? Can you modify the OS from within the OS, or do you have to download the "normal" version onto a computer with a flash writer and overwrite the original installation? Is there such thing as the superuser in QNX? Does the superuser account exist on iOpeners? Anybody cracked the password yet?
Karl
I'm a slacker? You're the one who waited until now to just sit arround.
Re:QNX 4/Neutrino and SMP (Score:1)
For smp in QNX RtP check out http://staff.qnx.com/~cdm/smp/.
How about a working link? The address gets redirected to http://www.qnx.com/company/hr/index.html~cdm/smp/ which just doesn't work at all. I tried playing with various combinations but haven't got to anything except for a careers page.
Re:QNX 4/Neutrino and SMP (Score:1)
Re:Some key innaccuracies (Score:1)
I like to refer to him as my "mentor" as he was the man that first got me into Unix-ish OSs. Unfortunately Dan passed away in 1998. You can read the QNX page dedicated to him at:
http://www.qnx.com/danh/
I didn't keep in touch with him much after he left Winnipeg to move to Ottawa and QNX but I wouldn't be doing what I do had it not been for him.
Check your facts please.
grub
Why can't Linux do that? (Score:1)
Some key innaccuracies (Score:2)
QN(i)X, unlike the name suggests, has no relationship to, code in common with, or even many concepts similar to UNIX systems. It was from the start a fully distributed and true realtime microkernel system using a common message passing architecture applied both locally and over a LAN whereby most services were user mode applications, including file systems and device drivers. In a number of ways QNX achieved much of what Plan 9 had hoped to, some 20 years earlier, and perhaps that is the most comperable system.
While there were many actually innovate ideas first used widely in QNX, unfortunately it has always been and remains essentially a proprietary system,and this seems both to have limited it's growth, and it's future potential substancially.
QNX= Qunix = Kyoo-Nicks (Score:2)
I gave QNX a whirl, along with Hard Hat Linux (embedded rtos) and Be.
Qnx was fast, but Be 'felt' faster. Be had support for my soundchips, but lacked support for wavelan802.11b . QNX lacked sound support and wavelan 802.11b
Hard Hat is coming along but needs work. Didn't 'feel' as fast as either of the other two. Haven't tried Lineo yet.
Granted, my soundchip was a cs4237b, and I can't really expect them to have wavelan available yet.
I'm sorry I haven't got real numbers to back up my early impressions of speed... but one of the biggest interface issues is, does the user get feedback that something has occurred? If it 'feels' slow, it is.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
heh heh (Score:1)
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:1)
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:1)
My main complaint about the Audrey: (Score:2)
I wish the home electronics manufacturers would at least start shipping with the option of an ethernet port that configs offa DHCP...
Don't feed the plants. (Score:3)
QNX rocks (Score:5)
In 1982, I ported one of the earliest MUDS (Scepter, 1979) from a Cyber 6000 mainframe to a PC using QNX. It supported sixteen users on an IBM PC XT (4Mhz 8-bit 8088 CPU). And no stinking 16650 FIFOs. With 1-character-per-interrupt, 16 users merrily MUD'ed away at 2400 baud.
In addition to the MUD we offered chat rooms, e-mail, and two other multi-player games (Diplomacy and Space Combat). We charged $2.99 an hour. It paid my way through college.
Don't believe it? Telnet to drscape.com. To this day it still runs on a 4Mhz PC XT with QNX 1.14.
Alan Klietz
Author, Scepter of Goth on QNX
alank@algintech.NOSPAM.com
Re:My main complaint about the Audrey: (Score:1)
QNX developed by who? (Score:1)
It's "Back the Underdog" week! (Score:1)
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:1)
Frankly, the module system in FreeBSD, Linux, and others is more of a convenient way of keeping portions of the kernel out of memory unless you have a use for it. QNX's big advantage here is the layer of abstraction between these services and the microkernel, using their extremely efficient messaging systems.
And for the record, if you wanted to make a Linux app fit on a floppy, modules would
Gee... (Score:1)
Wonder why that could be...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:2)
A couple of months ago, Handhelds.org had reported getting XFree down to 400k on the iPaq platform. I have no idea what the footprint is now, or what the 400k referred to, disk or memory.
Regardless, there is much cruft in XFree, even 4.x, and most people read the memory usage wrong. It's not a bad X platform, and could easily fit on a disk, a la Photon (although I believe that's X+a WM)
--
Evan (Who used three X Servers before choosing XFree).
Re:Coincidence (Score:1)
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
Just yesterday. BeOS.
--
Coincidence (Score:1)
Anybody out there using inferno or plan 9?
Viva the obscure OS's
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:1)
That's called an "a r t i c l e".
If you read it you will find a "link" to their "homepage".
There you will be embarrassed to learn that your comment makes no sense.
If only you weren't so american...um...I mean stupid.
Re:almost (Score:1)
Qnx Neutrino supports Mips, PowerPC, x86 and I heard about Arm/StrongArm support but haven't seen much about it. Their latest releases are x86 only but I hope they don't completely drop the other architechtures for Qnx RTP and beyond.
My mistake... I was certain that it was x86 only. This is good if it isn't!
Gay hero (Score:2)
Ever read that Onion story about they gay man that saved a girl's life when her house caught fire? They went on and on about the hero (who likes to hug and kiss other men) that selflessly put her life ahead of his own.
don't know why that came to mind just now
-------
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:2)
So secondary storage isn't a problem...perhaps you're talking about primary storage and the wonderful universe of volatile memory? The i-opener has 32MB. My laptop has less than that, and I've never seen a problem with it. Perhaps you were talking about something like those Xerox copiers that use an embedded linux kernel buried deep inside that I read about a few years ago.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that the behavior of linux on your desktop is going to be the same as linux aimed for a cramped enviroment. Ever tried to see how small you can make a kernel? Try taking out all filesystem support. Or PCI support. Make sure you aren't supporting the old a.out binaries. Or plug and play devices. Or floppy disk drives. Or any IP-related stuff that isn't necessary for a non-server. Most of these devices thus far have excluded ethernet cards, so unless your device is among the first to do so, you won't need it here. How bad do you need the console support on a machine that won't have people ever seeing the console?
So now that you've got your stripped kernel, what if it's too big? Why not go through the source and trim it even more? Who needs a source license and NDA's up the wazoo just to make it work on a prototype platform?
ok, so maybe Linux isn't the answer for everything and everybody...but to make a general statement like "Linux is not really suitable for small embedded applications, since it has a large" (you never actually finished this sentence, it's that vague...) says exactly nothing. Add to that your assumption that these devices have less memory than a fair amount of them do...and we have BLATANT UNPROVED ASSERTIONS! Whee!
Come back when you have some facts to back these up.
-transiit
No GNU toolchain keeps me from developing on it (Score:2)
The big reason I haven't gotten into QNX is their lack of using the GNU toolchain. Now I noticed someone here mentioned that QNX is older than GNU (established 1983-84), which would explain why they didn't use it off-the-bat. But you would have figured that they would have moved over to the GNU toolchain sometime since. Expecially in light of numerous other, commercial RTOS' use of the GNU toolchain (e.g., VxWorks).
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Re:Some factual errors.... (Score:2)
I wasn't into computers enough at the time to know what O/S they were running. I'm amazed it was QNX. What did they use for the GUI? Must have been something proprietary. Also if memory serves it was a client/server setup and the Icons we used ran everything over the network from a central server.
Ah man, the Logo interpreter and all that dorky educational doftware on the Icon - those wree the days
The coolest things about QNX (Score:5)
It's also really efficiently written, and almost completely modular (as opposed to Linux' monolithic-plus-kitchen-sink approach). Their 1.44MB Floppy demo contains the bootloader and kernel, a GUI, a web wrowser, tcp/ip and PPP. No other OS can do that, because they're too bloated. Linux can be put in a floppy, but there's no way to fit a GUI and a web browser as well. YOu might be able to chuck out things like the shell and libc, and include a statically-linked version of lynx, but nothing as good as the QNX demo can be achieved.
QNX is much more suitable for PDAs and otehr small systems than is Linux. It's loads more reliable, more easily upgradable, and much more compact. Just look at the iOpener; into 16MB they fit the OS, a custom GUI built on top of the QNX GUI, web browser, email, telnet server, and other things, and hadspace left over to store files. The only other OS that could do that is WinCE, and it's much more limited than QNX (such as a limit of 32 processes, 22 of which are consumed by the system itself).
QNX rocks!
________________________________________
Re:It's "Back the Underdog" week! (Score:2)
The Phoenix Consortium [slashdot.org]
Our intention is to establish a migration path to a new Amiga-like platform and computing experience. By clearly defining the standards and specs Phoenix hardware and software developers will be using we thus provide a common basis for individual developers to proceed with their own development stategies.
--
Re:QNX over rated (Score:2)
Re:Umm... (Score:2)
I remember when QNX came out, I remember a few people raving about it, and I don't remember ever hearing anybody say anything nasty about it, so It's good to see a nice company start to get some real attention (now, if we could only get them to release their source...).
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Re:I could see it, but (Score:2)
Re:Some factual errors.... (Score:2)
Re:I could see it, but (postal) (Score:2)
BTW, they Love WebObjects. It powers the Postal Services intranet.
Re:QNX rocks (Score:4)
At least it used to, before you posted it to
Poor XT...
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
Economies of Scale (Score:2)
Linux is just starting to make inroads. It seems pointless (to me) that another OS should be pushed like this. Economies of scale people.
DISCLAIMER: This is MY opinion. I'm not telling you what's right, wrong, whatever. I might be wrong. I'm probably right. Please tell me, either way.
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:2)
Some people (e.g. me) think that the platforms that are currently enjoying the benefits of economy of scale, happen to be really, really lame and uninteresting.
I think everyone should support whatever they like best, and then if something gets a good economy of scale after that, fine. But for everyone to sacrifice their values and settle for a concensus of mediocrity (e.g. x86, Windoze, Linux) just for the sake of getting economy of scale, is destructive to the overall state of the art.
---
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:2)
It booted a dos 6.22 environment with ramdisk support (4MB ramdisk. Memory was a lot more expensive back then) It then ran PKunzip on my custom zipfile which dumped just enough win3.1 files in the ramdisk (things like WIN.COM, a few DLLs, SYSTEM.DAT, ARIAL.TTF, FILEMAN.EXE, and NOTEPAD.EXE). I could've spanned the zipfile to another floppy and had more, but it was enough to have a single disk that gave me a GUI, a filemanager, and a text editor.
(I've got an early version of this still around somewhere. Enough to squeeze a standard-mode win3.1 environment on a 1.44 floppy uncompressed, if anyone's interested, maybe I'll dig it up and do a filelisting or something so you can go off and recreate it yourself)
So could I redo this in a linux environment? Yes. I would have to write my own custom GUI and browser to do it, but I'm confident with enough effort, it could be done. Maybe the answer is even easier and it would just be "Hey, port photon to linux along with its browser and we've got the same thing"
You've gone off and made the mistake of assuming either that the linux kernel is always going to be way too big or that they put the whole QNX OS on that floppy or that the gui and browser are part of the qnx kernel. I'd be very worried if someone tried to squeeze an unmodified version of Xfree86 into an embedded device -- you think that's what TiVo's using? The jailbait image that I referred to above manages to squeeze a copy of Xfree, Netscape Navigator, Blackbox, and a bunch of other stuff within the 16MB limit. Sure, they were doing stuff like what I did with packing things into compressed archives and loading them into a ramdisk, but I'm confident that with some custom coding, you could do a lot better. (if they didn't build XF86_SVGA without support for anything but the chipset in the i-opener, they probably could've saved some space right there.)
So the better question is can you make a linux kernel that fits in 1.44MB - ((diskspace for gui) + (diskspace for browser) + (diskspace for any necessary commands)). I think you can.
--transiit
Re:No GNU toolchain keeps me from developing on it (Score:4)
I tried out RTP when it came out, they had ports for (but not limited to)
- gtk
- x11amp
- gimp
- ssh
- mc
- vi
- (maybe emacs..)
- abiword
- a Mozilla port that I couldn't find
- many, many others.
Overall, the OS was smokin' fast, they're going to be using IBM's JDK (actually developed in Ottawa too by one of the object* companies.) They also had good 3D support for my Voodoo 3, and had demos of Q3 to prove it..
The browser was pretty good, the photon interface was good (but not as nice as the DE's for Linux.) Anyway, I was quite imoressed. Maybe you should give it a spin...
Ben
About the ICON... (Score:3)
The original ICON was built by a firm called CEMCORP, Canadian Educational Microprocessors (or Microcomputers, but I think it was the former) specifically for the Canadian educational market. IIRC they were 8086's with about 512K or 640K of RAM, and CGA graphics but done in an unusual configuration, not PC standard. They were the large square chassis built with military grade steel and had an integrated keyboard with a trackball on the right, with an "Action" key for the mouse button. They were ridiculously overbuilt. The ICON's were workstations running over Arcnet (ICONNET) IIRC, into a fileserver called the Lexicon, which carried a 30MByte hard disk interfaced via ESDI or ST506 MFM.
The next-gen ICON was the ICON2, built by Unisys using an 80186, in the grey single piece monitor/CPU and the detachable keyboard/trackball unit. Some ICON2's integrated SCSI IIRC to host an LMSI single speed CDRom reader. Apparently there was an ICON3 which was a 80386, but IIRC it was a basic Unisys clone PC. The Unisys icons eventually allowed for emulation of MSDOS but it was painfully slow.
The ICON system ran QNX on both the ICON and LEXICON in a full multiuser configuration. There was a graphical layer, called Ambience, and a number of nifty programs (I really like the paint package, it made me buy an Amiga later on) mostly written by the Ontario government and University of Waterloo.
The machines were ridiculously slow-because of the reliance on the LEXICON and the slow 2MBps network. If the Lexicon crashed (and it did regularily) the entire system needed to rebooted, which took 15 minutes plus. Needless to say this wasn't popular with teachers with only 30 minute class periods. The hardware, at least mechanically, was extremely well designed. The machines were obviously designed for the classroom, and I can't remember a machine being damaged physically-they knew the target market well-the keyboards had oversized areas to get to the trackball, they were relatively indestructable, and they had headphone jacks up front for quiet use.
ICONS were very far ahead in concept (each student was suppsoed to have their own workspace, true multiuser, each teacher could look at each student) but poorly implemented (poor training, not enough time to set everything up properly). Improper administrator (usually the school librarian or a really bright kid) and/or teacher training made it even worse. I remember learning all about it when the school VP let me (at age 12) read all the QNX manuals.
Calum The ICON's were
Checkout eCos, a true open source RTOS (Score:2)
eCos Development Page [redhat.com]
Currently working with it for a NAS solution. Have also used QNX Neutrino and WindRiver VxWorks.
This is NOT a waste of time (Score:5)
It's NOT LINUX!!
It's good to have choice. That's why we have a bazillion window managers and theming skinnable apps that give you a billion ways to dump core. >:(
But aside from the bland "choice is good" mantra, QNX has definite good qualities of its own - it's very lightweight, very fast, has a decent GUI system going for it (despite not having DND, which I deem a semi-serious flaw, but one that could be tackled), and it could teach other people a thing or two yet with the way it does stuff. And even if it doesn't even have anything to teach, it's still a potentially very useful OS to run on one's computer. Time will tell. Time and apps.
Don't dump on it (yet).
GAIN EVERLASTING LIFE! [alexchiu.com]
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:2)
Whether or not it is needed at all, however, is another matter.
Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
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Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
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Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
"for teh love of god zealots, think outside of the box. "
Rofl.. "EH LUUNIX GODS MUST BE APPEASED! UES LINUS, IT RAX)R@#!RT JEFFK IS HAX)R!"
I'm not a zealot. Just someone try to present a nice balanced view, since your posting seemed to be bandwagon jumping onto QNX.
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Re:The coolest things about QNX (Score:2)
Sarcasm aside, this is a funny troll posting. Even if you didn't mean to be a troll, that's exactly what you're doing.
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Sucky attitude (Score:3)
While I've heard all the arguments from QNX fans as to why this marketing model makes sense, it doesn't change the fact that an OS copy not sold is money lost, either way you look at it. How could they possibly be better off not selling me the OS at all, versus licensing it at $50 or so a pop? They should simply introduce a layered support mechanism, giving more support to those who pay more, and less (mailing lists, FAQs, KBs etc) to those who pay less.
gave it a try, not horribly impressed (Score:3)
The downsides - I hate the filesystem layout - it's really confusing, moreso than other unices. The interface is allright, but it's not as well designed as other ones I've tried. It'll be cool for embedded applications, but as a desktop OS, which is more what RTP is, it doesn't beat *BSD/Linux or BeOS. What's frustrating is that they've been able to garner a lot of support from other vendors, having a JVM and Flash and RealPlayer, Quake III (!) and lots of hardware support, compared to BeOS which is just now getting these things and has had lots of problems with hardware vendors.
All in all, I reccomend giving it a try, but I don't think I'd use it regularly. Between BeOS and FreeBSD, all my needs are pretty much satisfied. Well, cept for when I need to boot Windows to play Counter-Strike.
-lx
Re:Actually, I think it's Canadian... (Score:2)
The original name of QNX was QUNIX, but some large telephony corp asked them to change the name to prevent confusion.
QNX started in 1981, 3COM in 1984. And, as pointed out, QNX is a canadian concern.
Re:Economies of Scale (Score:2)
In any case, its not completely relevant. QNX isn't 'Free' software in source-code availability terms.