Ubuntu Core 22 Brings Real-Time Linux Options To IoT (venturebeat.com) 22
An anonymous reader shares a report: Embedded and internet of things (IoT) devices are a growing category of computing, and with that growth has come expanded needs for security and manageability. One way to help secure embedded and IoT deployments is with a secured operating system, such as Canonical's Ubuntu Core. The Ubuntu Core provides an optimized version of the open-source Ubuntu Linux operating system for smaller device footprints, using an approach that puts applications into containers. On June 15, Ubuntu Core 22 became generally available, providing users with new capabilities to help accelerate performance and lock down security.
Ubuntu Core 22 is based on the Ubuntu 22.04 Linux operating system, which is Canonical's flagship Linux distribution that's made available for cloud, server and desktop users. Rather than being a general purpose OS, Ubuntu Core makes use of the open-source Snap container technology that was originally developed by Canonical to run applications. With Snaps, an organization can configure which applications should run in a specific IoT or embedded device and lock down the applications for security. Snaps provide a cryptographically authenticated approach for application updates.
Ubuntu Core 22 is based on the Ubuntu 22.04 Linux operating system, which is Canonical's flagship Linux distribution that's made available for cloud, server and desktop users. Rather than being a general purpose OS, Ubuntu Core makes use of the open-source Snap container technology that was originally developed by Canonical to run applications. With Snaps, an organization can configure which applications should run in a specific IoT or embedded device and lock down the applications for security. Snaps provide a cryptographically authenticated approach for application updates.
Let's draw a Venn diagram... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu Core targets the intersection.
Re:Let's draw a Venn diagram... (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who is in the target market for this, my first thought is to wait a few years to see if they continue to support it. Too many of these things only last a few years before being dropped, if that.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Let's draw a Venn diagram... (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps. It's just that there are so many abandoned Linux distros for embedded systems, with no easy upgrade path. The patches get outdated, they become a maintenance headache. People are starting to wake up to the security issues too, expecting you to keep things updated.
Not just Linux either. Microsoft abandons Windows Compact Embedded (WinCE) the moment it's out the door.
"Portuguese doesn't work!"
"Yeah we no, we aren't going to fix it, as compensation here's a free support ticket to cover the one you just wasted."
Google too. Android Things didn't last very long and they didn't even provide a build environment, you had to do it via their website.
Many of the hardware vendors are just as bad.
"This USB port doesn't work!"
"Use the other one!"
It was not fun retrofitting a USB hub chip into that thing. If you are looking for a System-on-Module, use a Raspberry Pi. They aren't perfect but every flaw has been discovered and documented at least.
tcp/23 (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps. It's just that there are so many abandoned Linux distros for embedded systems, with no easy upgrade path. The patches get outdated, they become a maintenance headache. People are starting to wake up to the security issues too, expecting you to keep things updated.
How about OpenWRT [openwrt.org]? That's been relatively well maintained for over a decade, if one includes the LEDE fork that has been merged back.
Re: (Score:3)
Containers are exactly what you don't want on an embedded device. You end up duplicating libraries on both the core system and inside of each container. Not something you want to be doing on an embedded device with limited resources.
Plus you have the security implications, as now you need to keep both the base system and each container up to date separately. Embedded IoT devices are already pretty bad at keeping things up to date, so even if Ubuntu provides updates to the base OS and the hardware is standar
Re: Eh? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
>A multicore system with many Gbytes of storage and memory can still be embedded.
Yeah, in a vehicle's object detection computer or home's smart tv or entertainment console perhaps. Those are the comparatively rare exceptions to the general rule that small resource-limited embedded processors are the norm; kilobyte-to-megabyte embedded environments overwhelmingly outnumber the multi-gig embedded situations easily by a factor of over a hundred.
I could see Ubuntu's thing being used in routers.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure you *could* create a highly powerful embedded device, but in general you will create the device to only be as powerful as it needs to be and no more. Using a higher specced device than necessary just increases the cost.
Using smaller more efficient software then becomes a trade off between time spent optimizing the software vs per unit cost of the hardware.
Re: (Score:3)
More to the point, snap is exactly what you don't want on an embedded device. I installed Ubuntu 22.04 and ran Firefox, and it ran but it wasn't themed correctly which apparently is just one way in which snap sucks. However that way is irrelevant for embedded. What isn't is that when I updated the system some of my snaps broke and I had to refresh them, which means redownloading the entire snap. Now multiply this by an assload of IoT devices and see how you like it.
Snap is garbage. It should be flushed down
Re: (Score:2)
... What does "containers" have to do with "IoT"? It's all more buzzwords than making sense. But hey, big fuss press release! Winnar winnar ubuntu dinnar.
They missed the most important additions. Had they included blockchain-AI NFTs, I'd be interested. Missed opportunity
Snaps, no thanks! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Real-Time is kind of a buzzword (Score:2)
At it's actual core it only means that things have to be done by a certain deadline. If you are dealing with users or heavy machinery that deadline can be in hundreds of milliseconds. If you are playing audio or video you deal with dozens of milliseconds. So any modern desktop system has places it needs to be real-time.
On the other hand there are systems that need to do actions within micro or even nano seconds. That is a totally different kind of problem and usually you don't want to have a fully fledged o
Re: Real-Time is kind of a buzzword (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It definitely is not a buzz-word. For soft real-time, you guarantee a range(which can be generous, true), but there's some stuff in the industrial realm where you have to use hard real-time, where you guarantee an interrupt is performed inside an upper bound, which can be as tight as 5 cycles on some processors. I've seen it used in monitoring and control equipment for chemical process handling for example. Avionics, rocket control systems etc are also areas where I've seen some real tight guarantees.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't see preemptive Linux as a viable candidate for most of the industrial work I've seen. Stuff that crashes physically and expensively if the OS has an ooopsie.
Re: Real-Time is kind of a buzzword (Score:3)
some real tight guarantees
These are referred to as pimp-tight guarantees
Custom OS loads & kernels? Really? (Score:2)
A custom OS load would be mandatory. Like an IoT device that does not have access to NTP, would not attempt to run the NTP daemon. Or a device without builtin HW clock would not try and set the OS time from a HW clock. Those features would just not be run at boot, but not even available in the OS image.
Then their is the kernel. I have watched the Linux kerne