“RTLinux is an extension to the Linux kernel for real-time
control. That is, RTLinux assists timing-critical tasks to finish
within hard deadlines. General Editor Kevin Fu interviews the
principal architect of RTLinux and extracts advice for budding
computer scientists…”
“KF: RTLinux takes an interesting stance to give Linux realtime
capabilities. How do you interface RTLinux with Linux? How does
this affect development of realtime programs?”
“VY: The RTLinux philosophy is that the realtime subsystem needs
to be as simple and predictable and close to the raw machine as
possible. So we provide a couple of ways to connect realtime tasks
to ordinary Linux tasks. We split realtime applications between the
part that is really realtime and the part that just needs to run
fast. For Linux tasks, the realtime system can look just like a
device that can read and written. You can write a realtime
application as a Perl program or even a shell script that gets data
from the realtime “device” and sends commands to that
“device.“