In today's entry in our Alternative OS Contest, James Ingraham takes a close look at QNX, the operating system based on the Neutrino microkernel. He concludes that "While you can probably find solutions for just about all of your desktop computing needs using the QNX RTOS, that is not QNX's strong suit. Its focus is real-time, embedded, and mission critical applications." Read on for the whole article.
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Member since:2005-07-14
Member since:2006-05-20
"You can't do NOTHING with QNX..."
Ignoring the double negative...
I'd better call my customers quickly, then, since we've got about 100 industrial robots (we're a small company) doing "nothing" because they're running on QNX. Oh, and somebody put in a call to NASA and tell them the International Space Station isn't working either. Neither, apparently, is the Cabury plant in Canada, which is clearly NOT producing 48 million pounds of chocolate bars a year using QNX. And I guess we'll have to tell Audi, Accura, & Saab that their high-end, luxury in-car entertainment systems don't work. Or if you want to be REALLY scared, how about the anasthesia machines running on QNX? I guess they "can't do nothing" either. </sarcasm>
I would much rather be hooked up to an anasthesia machine running QNX than Linux. Sure, QNX doesn't have the best photo editors, chat clients, or games. But when you're talking about millions of dollars or even human life on the line, is "can I get on AIM?" really a relevant question?
Member since:2006-01-03
"I would much rather be hooked up to an anasthesia machine running QNX than Linux. Sure, QNX doesn't have the best photo editors, chat clients, or games. But when you're talking about millions of dollars or even human life on the line, is "can I get on AIM?" really a relevant question?"
The "but it sucks on the desktop" crowd really annoys me, as if there's no life beyond the desktop.
But you just did the exact opposite here. Linux may be suited for the desktop (which I think it isn't yet, but that's a different story), but that doesn't mean it isn't suited for critical embedded applications too (there are medical systems out controlled by software running on Windows XP, which I find much more disturbing).
Member since:2006-03-03
I believe we're all speaking about the desktop version, right ? Osnews deals with Linux, Morphos, skyos, reactos, etc... Are these embedded OSes ? Noooo, and thus I'm NOT speaking about the embedded version of QNX which is famously known for its power. So please don't put silly words in my mouth... This article competition mostly deals with DESKTOP OS, not embedded !
Currently, from a desktop point of view, QNX lacks of many many many features to compete with other opponent operating system. One thing that was (isn't anymore as QNX NC was pulled) hyped and promoted about QNX is how it is POSIX compliant, and how easy it is to convert softwares from *nix and Linux. Thus all of this for a promised usage as desktop OS.
The article deals with the desktop edition of QNX (shelf, photon gui, ...), and concludes that QNX is fast, reliable, etc... Sure, but unusable for the common buddy 
And the competition is about desktop OS to be discovered by the common guys outa there !
Kochise
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces."But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Member since:
2006-03-03
You can't do NOTHING with QNX, especially with the 6.3, and even less (than NOTHING) after the 30 days ran out...
Kochise