[ale] Linux vs XP Embedded

[Joe Knapka]

Hi folks,

I've been given an interesting realtime control system to build, and
my employer wants to evaluate both Linux (woohoo!) and Windows XP
Embedded (bummer).  I know some of you have some embedded/realtime
experience with Linux, so I'd like your opinions on this subject.  I
can't say much about the application itself, except that it will be
handling something in the neighborhood of 50Gbytes per day (that's a
G) of IP and serial traffic, and must meet hard deadlines on the order
of once per second (but a missed deadline won't kill anyone - this is
not a medical or aviation application. We can probably even recover
from a missed deadline, but that sort of thing should be kept to an
absolute minimum).

I'm thinking that a 2.6-series kernel would be the way to go with
this.  I understand 2.6 integrates the preemptive and low-latency
patches, and that 2.6 can be built in a VM-less configuration so as to
remove latency associated with demand paging.

Does anyone have any further suggestions or alternatives?  Also, is
anyone here in a position to evaluate the relative strengths of Linux
vs XP Embedded?  Personally I feel that the "Embedded" part of that
name is probably pure marketing hype, but I could be wrong.  It is hard
to see how Linux could possibly be a *worse* choice then XP in this
domain, though.

Thanks,

-- Joe Knapka