| TABLE 1
Real-Time Operating System checklist
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| Language/Microprocessor Support
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| The first step in finding an RTOS for your project is to look at those vendors supporting the language and microprocessor you’ll be using.
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| Tool Compatibility
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| Make
sure your RTOS works with your ICE, compiler, assembler, linker, and source code debuggers.
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| Services
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| Operating systems provide a variety of services. Make sure your OS supports the services (queues, times, semaphores) you expect to use in your design.
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| Footprint
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| RTOSes are often scalable, including only those services you end up needing in your applications. Based on what services you’ll need, and the number of tasks, semaphores, and everything else you expect to use, make sure your RTOS will work in the RAM and ROM you have.
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| Footprint
|
| RTOSes are often scalable, including only those services you end up needing in your applications. Based on what services you’ll need, and the number of tasks, semaphores, and everything else you expect to use, make sure your RTOS will work in the RAM and ROM you have.
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| Performance
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| Can your RTOS
meet your performance requirements? Make sure you understand benchmarks vendors give you and how they apply to the hardware you will really be using.
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| Software Components
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| Are required components (protocol stacks, communications services, real-time databases, Web services, virtual machines, graphics libraries, and so on) available for your
RTOS? How much effort will it be to integrate them?
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| Device Drivers
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| If you’re using common hardware, are device drivers available for your RTOS?
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| Debugging Tools
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| RTOS
vendors may have debugging tools that help find defects that are harder to find with source-level debuggers (such as deadlocks, forgotten semaphore puts, and so on).
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| Standards Compatibility
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| Are there safety or compatibility standards your application demands? Make sure your RTOS complies.
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| Technical Support
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| Phone support is typically covered for a limited time after your purchase or on a year-to-year basis through support. Sometimes applications engineers are available. Additionally, some vendors provide training and consulting.
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| Source vs. Object Code
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| With some RTOSes you get the source code to the operating system when you buy a license. In other cases, you get only object code or linkable libraries.
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| Licensing
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| Make sure you understand how the RTOS vendor licenses their RTOS. With some vendors, run-time licenses are required for each
board shipped and development tool licenses are required for each developer.
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| Reputation
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| Make sure you’re dealing with someone you’ll be happy with.
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| Services
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| Real-time operating systems provide developers a full complement of features: several types of semaphores (counting, mutual exclusion), times, mailboxes, queues, buffer managers, memory system managers, events, and more.
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