14. Glossary — RTEMS User Manual 5.4-rc2 (21st August 2026) documentation

# 14. Glossary

ABI

  Application Binary Interface

Architecture

  Family or class of processor based around a common instruction set. RTEMS architectures follow the GCC architecture model as RTEMS needs an GCC architecture compiler for each support RTEMS architecture.

APA

  Arbitrary Processor Affinity

API

  Application Programming Interface

Binutils

  GNU Binary Utilities such as the assembler `as`, linker `ld` and a range of other tools used in the development of software.

BSP

  Board Support Package is a specific configuration RTEMS can be built for. An RTEMS install process installs specific library and headers files for a single BSP. A BSP optimises RTEMS to a specific target hardware.

Buildbot

  A continuous inteagration build server.

C11

  ISO/IEC 9899:2011

C++11

  ISO/IEC 14882:2011

Crosscompiler

  A compiler built to run on a Host that generate code for another architecture.

DLL

  Dynamically Linker Library used on Windows.

EDF

  Earliest Deadline First

EMB²

  Embedded Multicore Building Blocks

FAT

  File Allocation Table

Futex

  Fast User-Space Locking

IMFS

  In-Memory File System

JFFS2

  Journalling Flash File System version 2

GCC

  GNU Compiler Collection

GDB

  GNU Debugger

GNU

  GNU’s Not Unix

Host

  The computer and operating system that hosts the RTEMS development tools such as the compiler, linker and debugger.

MinGW

  Minimal GNU system for Windows that lets GCC built programs use the standard Windows operating system DLLs. It lets you build native Windows programs with the GNU GCC compiler.

MinGW64

  Minimal GNU system for 64bit Windows. MinGW64 is not the MinGW project.

MrsP

  Multiprocessor Resource-Sharing Protocol

MSYS2

  Minimal System 2 is a fork of the MinGW project’s MSYS tool and the MinGW MSYS tool is a fork of Cygwin project. The Cygwin project provides a POSIX emulation layer for Windows so POSIX software can run on Windows. MSYS is a minimal version that is just enough to let `configure` scripts run. MSYS has a simplified path structure to make it easier to building native Windows programs.

NFSv2

  Network File System version 2

OMIP

  \(O(m)\) Independence-Preserving Protocol

OpenMP

  Open Multi-Processing

POSIX

  Portable Operating System Interface is a standard that lets software be portable between compliant operating systems.

prefix

  A path used when building a package so all parts of the package reside under that path.

RFS

  RTEMS File System

RSB

  RTEMS Source Builder is part of the RTEMS Tools Project. It builds packages such as the tools for the RTEMS operating system.

RTEMS

  The Real-Time Executive for Multiprocessor Systems or RTEMS is an open source fully featured Real Time Operating System or RTOS that supports a variety of open standard application programming interfaces (API) and interface standards such as POSIX and BSD sockets.

SMP

  Symmetric Multiprocessing

Target

  A target is the hardware or simulator a BSP built executable runs on.

Test Suite

  See Testsuite

Testsuite

  RTEMS test suite located in the `testsuites/` directory.

TLS

  Thread-Local Storage

Waf

  Waf build system. For more information see http://www.waf.io/

YAFFS2

  Yet Another Flash File System version 2