RTEMS 4.5.0 Release Announcement

October 30, 2000 - OAR Corporation is proud to announce that RTEMS 4.5.0 is now available for immediate download from http://www.oarcorp.com.

RTEMS is an open source real-time operating system with support for multiple open standards including POSIX 1003.1b and ITRON. In addition, it includes a Classic API based on the RTEID specification that provides a high degree of compatability with pSOS+. RTEMS supports priority-based, preemptive scheduling with optional support for rate monotonic scheduling, priority inheritance, and the priority ceiling protocol.

There has been substantial activity in the RTEMS community since the last release and the list of improvements is too long to detail them all here. See enhancements for a full list. Major items to note include the availability of toolset executables for Linux, FreeBSD, Cygwin, and Solaris. This eliminates the need to build the GNU tools from source and significantly reduces the startup time for new users. The addition of significant features like RPC/XDR and filesystem support provide an even stronger foundation for existing users to build embedded real-time systems upon.

In addition to numerous GNU libraries such as ncurses, readline, libavl, and zlib, numerous third party packages have been ported to this release of RTEMS including:

  • MicroWindows/Nano-X,
  • OmniOrb2,
  • GoAhead WebServer
  • Tool Command Language (TCL),
  • and
  • Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS).
  • OAR Corporation offers RTEMS-related services including support, training, and custom development.


    List of Enhancements in RTEMS 4.5.0

    The following (lengthy) list summarizes the enhancements over the previous releases RTEMS including the following:

  • POSIX 1003.1b API support is 85% of full UNIX including filesystem, threads, mutexes, semaphores, and message queues.
  • Addition of ITRON 3.0 API
  • Addition of remote debug server
  • Better integration with GNU tools
  • RTEMS makes better use of automake and autoconf
  • RTEMS is more compliant with GNU package build standards
  • Open Source Packages Working on RTEMS
  • TCL, readline, zlib, ncurses, libavl
  • OmniOrb2
  • MicroWindows
  • Client interface to MySQL Database
  • Smaller Application Executables!!!
  • Multiprocessing is now a configure time option.
  • Unreferenced routines are not included in executables.
  • object files are not merged into ".rel" files.
  • XON/XOFF flow control support added
  • Addition of reuseable peripheral controller library (libchip)
  • Conversion to GNU Automake
  • New CPU Models Supported
  • PowerPC (mpc505, mpc509, mpc821, mpc823, mpc850, mpc860, ppc750)
  • i960 (i960HA, i960RP)
  • SH (SH-2: sh7045)
  • Host based "unix" simulator (preliminary Cygwin support)
  • Addition of the following BSPs:
  • Technologic Systems TS-1325 (i386ex) BSP
  • DY-4 DMV177 (PPC603e) BSP
  • eth_comm (mpc860) BSP
  • Motorola MVME167 (68040) BSP
  • Vista SCORE603e (PPC603e) BSP
  • Radstone ppcn_60x (PPC603e) BSP
  • Motorola MCP750 (PPC750) BSP
  • Motorola MVME230[1-4] (PPC603e) BSP
  • Motorola MVME230[5-8] (PPC604) BSP
  • Ramix rxgen960 (i960RP) BSP
  • Addition of file system infrastructure
  • In-Memory Filesystem
  • TFTP Client Filesystem
  • mini In-Memory Filesystem
  • Network functionality
  • select() supported for socket
  • DHCP support added
  • "tap" functionality added
  • timeout on sockets supported
  • numerous network device drivers
  • ftp server
  • ntp client
  • RPC/XDR added
  • GoAhead http server
  • initial PPP support
  • C++
  • multithread safe exceptions
  • GNAT/RTEMS
  • Ada "self" optimized
  • Ada interrupt support
  • Documentation
  • New documents
  • FAQ
  • ITRON 3.0 API User's Guide
  • RTEMS/GDB User's Guide
  • Remote Debugger Server Specifications
  • POSIX 1003.1 Compliance Guide
  • Porting Guide
  • Filesystem Design Guide
  • many more index entries
  • available in PDF, HTML, PostScript, DVI, and GNU info