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linuxarduinomicrocontrollerbeagleboneblack
Yusif_Nurizade
Yusif_Nurizade

Reputation: 133

Benefits of UNIX or UNIX variant on microcontroller?

This may be a foolish question but I've been searching around for some time and don't see a clear answer. I've seen several microcontrollers advertised as running Unix-like software (Linux, Ubuntu) for example, the BeagleBone Black and Arduino Yun. Can someone please explain to me the benefit of this? So far I've used a couple of microcontrollers like the Arduino Uno/Duo, Freescale FRDM and STM32 Discovery which either didn't have this feature or I was not aware of it. I'm starting to see it more and more on newer microcontrollers so I'd like to know what it brings to the table.

Full disclosure: I've had minimal exposure to UNIX and its variants so far so please talk slowly and use small words =)

Hope to hear from you, Yusif Nurizade

Upvotes: 0

Views: 744

Answers (2)

Mahendra Gunawardena
Mahendra Gunawardena

Reputation: 1976

In the heart of all Android and iphone is a Embedded Linux System. Without getting too deep

  • Linux + Java = Android
  • BSD Unix variant + C/C++/Object C = iOS

Now if you get deeper the above two statement can be argued for accuracy

All Android devices run on ARM based microprocessors. Beaglebone is one such open source hardware platform with can run Android as well as Embedded Linux distribution and even a Ubuntu.

Now (IMHO) Ubuntu is primarily for desktop and server application. Many of the popular computer server farms uses Ubuntu.

Now STM32 is a ARM based CORTEX-M micro control. Once again (IMHO) is mostly used for bare metal embedded applications. I have hard that FreeRTOS can be ported to TM4C123 ARM Cortex-M TM4C123.

Now the advantages of using Linux base micro controller architecture are

  1. OS is free for the most part
  2. Larger community of users
  3. The industry is moving towards open source
  4. Lot of free resources get up to speed

Disadvantage are

  1. Learning curve is pretty steep
  2. Expect to stumble and fall a few time

Below to two good resources to learn Beaglebone open source development

  1. Beaglebone
  2. Introduction to Beaglebone development by Derek Molloy of Dublin City University

HTH and good luck

Upvotes: 2

starblue
starblue

Reputation: 56822

You get complex drivers already included Linux for free (USB, internet protocols, storage media and file systems).

You can use lots of free software for the things not included in the kernel.

It is simpler to develop software on a full OS (easier to debug, look what is going on, change the configuration, etc etc).

The drawback is that the real-time capabilities are generally worse than for some small RTOS, and it needs more resources (a couple of megabytes memory).

Upvotes: 2

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