FAQ - LynxOS frequently asked questions
Miles Davies
Title: LynxOS FAQ
Maintained by: faq...@lynx.com
Last Modified: August 1995
Version: 1.4
Summary:
The following is the list of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and
their answers for the comp.os.lynx newsgroup. Where appropriate references
to other articles and existing materials are provided to allow the reader
to obtain more information about a particular topic.
Contributions, corrections, and additions can be submitted for review and
incorporation via email to faq...@lynx.com. The mail will be reviewed on
a weekly basis. Contributions and modifications to the FAQ will be performed
on a monthly basis. The FAQ will be posted during the 1st week of each
month with a new version number and modification date.
This FAQ is also posted to ftp.lynx.com and the Lynx Technical BBS.
Lynx, LynxOS, and Lynx Real-Time Systems are trademarks of Lynx Real-Time
Systems Inc.
Lynx and LynxOS should not be confused with the World Wide Web (WWW) browser
named Lynx. Lynx is a registered trademark of Lynx Real-Time Systems
Inc. Lynx Real-Time Systems is working actively to correct this situation
and misperception held by some of the public.
UNIX is a trademark of UNIX Systems Laboratories(USL)/Novell Inc. The
UNIX trademark is used via POSIX and/or XPG3 Certification.
SunOS is a trademark of Sun Microsystems Inc.
OS/2 is a trademark of International Business Machines Inc.
SCO is a trademark of The Santa Cruz Operation Inc.
MS/DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Inc.
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Table Of Contents
_________________
Section 1: General and Marketing Section:
__________________________________________
1-1. What is LynxOS?
1-2. Brief History of LynxOS.
1-3. What are the major features of LynxOS?
1-4. What are the latest releases of LynxOS?
1-5. What platforms does LynxOS run on?
1-6. How does LynxOS differ from other UNIX-like operating systems?
1-7. What types of applications can LynxOS be used in?
1-8. What is POSIX?
1-9. Is LynxOS POSIX Conformant?
1-10. What is the difference between POSIX Conformance and POSIX Compliance?
1-11. How can I get a list of POSIX Conformant Operating Systems?
1-12. What are the advantages of POSIX Conformance?
1-13. What is POSIX.1 (spec. 1003.1)?
1-14. What is POSIX.4 (spec. 1003.4)?
1-15. What is POSIX.4a (spec. 1003.4a)?
1-16 What is POSIX.1b (spec. 1003.1b)?
1-17. What development environments can be used by LynxOS?
1-18. What development tools are available with LynxOS?
1-19. Is Ada language support available for LynxOS?
1-20. What database support is available for LynxOS?
1-21. How is LynxOS Distributed?
1-22. What Product Components are available from Lynx?
1-23. How do I get in touch with Lynx Sales?
1-24. How do I get in touch with Lynx Technical Support?
1-25. Is Technical Training available for LynxOS?
1-26. What is the current Lynx Technical Training schedule?
1-27. Is there a BBS for LynxOS?
1-28. Is there a newsgroup for LynxOS?
1-29. Is there an ftp site for LynxOS?
Section 2: Technical Section:
______________________________
2-1. Is an MMU required for LynxOS?
2-2. Is a floating point coprocessor required for LynxOS?
2-3. Is a console required to boot LynxOS?
2-4. Is LynxOS ROMable?
2-5. Can I boot LynxOS over the network?
2-6. What GNU tools are available for LynxOS?
2-7. Does LynxOS support SLIP?
2-8. Does LynxOS support Virtual Memory Paging?
2-9. What is a contiguous file?
2-10. Can LynxOS read/write MS/DOS files?
2-11. Can LynxOS coexist with another OS on the same disk?
2-12. How do I shutdown LynxOS?
2-13. Is the SMC Ultra Ethernet adapter supported under LynxOS?
__________
Section 1: General and Marketing Section:
__________________________________________
1-1. What is LynxOS?
LynxOS is a proprietary UNIX-like real-time operating system. LynxOS
looks and feels like UNIX from the user/programmer point of view. It
was developed from the ground-up with high performance, deterministic
hard real-time response in mind. Although LynxOS is conformant with
POSIX 1003.1 it is not derived from any AT&T/USL/Novell source code.
The OS is in effect a complete re-implementation of UNIX from a
real-time perspective. LynxOS supports the POSIX.1, POSIX.4,
POSIX.4a, Berkeley (BSD), and System V (SVID) APIs and provides most
of the POSIX.2 facilities and utilities plus a whole lot more. Since
LynxOS was written from scratch with real-time performance foremost in
mind, it is able to provide deterministic, high performance real-time
responsiveness for real-time applications while still providing UNIX
compatibility. Lynx also provides a complete offering of standard
facilities to accompany LynxOS. Lynx has engineered TCP/IP, NFS,
Streams, X11, Motif and many of the GNU facilities to support the
LynxOS real-time environment and adhere to the design goals of the OS.
LynxOS should not be confused with the World Wide Web (WWW) browser
named Lynx. Lynx is a registered trademark of Lynx Real-Time Systems
Inc. Lynx Real-Time Systems is working actively to correct this situation
and misperception held by some of the public.
__________
1-2. Brief History of LynxOS.
Lynx Real-Time Systems was founded in 1985 in Dallas, Texas by Mitch
and Mike Bunnell with the intention of fulfilling the growing
requirement for an open real-time operating system. Having worked on
many real-time projects prior to founding Lynx Real-Time Systems, the
brothers found a real need in the real-time industry for an operating
system that would provide real-time application programmers the
sophistication of a mature, well-defined standard like UNIX while at
the same time fulfilling the hard real-time requirements that are
common to real-time applications.
After many man-years of work, Lynx Real-Time Systems unveiled
LynxOS, an innovative new real-time operating system that was
compatible with UNIX and conformant with POSIX 1003.1, yet fully
optimized for operation in the realm of hard real-time systems.
Now past the development stage, the company was moved to Silicon
Valley where a new president took the reins. Dr Inder Singh, founder
of the highly successful networking company, Excelan, took over as
President. Under his direction, LynxOS was ported to many other CPU
architectures.
Today, LynxOS is available on virtually every major CPU architecture
with more ports being completed every year. Lynx has sales offices all over
the United States as well as branch sales offices in France and Japan.
LynxOS has become a major success, having been licensed by large several
computer manufacturers wishing to include it within their offerings.
The operating system has been directly licensed by industry giants
such as IBM, HP, CDC, and others.
__________
1-3. What are the major features of LynxOS?
All the features of LynxOS are too numerous to cover in this short
FAQ :-> , but here are some of the major ones:
- The entire design of LynxOS, from the kernel to additional
networking and graphical interface modules, is preemptible. At no point
in its operation does LynxOS restrict real-time responsiveness. Every
operation is strictly performed on a per-task/thread priority basis.
The real-time nature of LynxOS is completely transparent to users
developing under it, and/or running applications under it.
- Lynx publishes accurate real-time performance numbers that are in
accordance with the system's performance in real-world situations.
Considered in these performance measurements are factors such as
interrupt latency (affected, of course, by the total number of singular
interrupts in the system), context switch time, preemption time, and
many others. All of these measurements together make up something
called the "worst-case task response time"; a number indicating the
longest period of time that the highest priority task will have to
wait to be run given that some external event signaling its
continuance has occured. For more information about realtime system
benchmarks please consult the article in the February 1994 issue of
Computer Design by Dr Inder Singh entitled, "Realtime Benchmarking".
- Full Memory Protection. Under all ports of LynxOS, a
virtually-addressable memory model is utilized. This allows processes
to operate in a fully protected environment without compromising any
performance. The advantages of this type of memory model are many, the
foremost being that no process is able to corrupt another process' (or
for that matter the kernel's) memory space accidentally. Additionally,
memory fragmentation is eliminated because no "holes" can form in a
process' free memory pool.
- Advanced Filesystem Support. With LynxOS, you get a fully
hierarchical, inode-based file system with directories, Berkeley
file naming conventions (filename lengths of up to 256 characters),
symbolic and hard links to files. The LynxOS filesystem also incorporates
the UNIX concept of devices looking like files. This is particularly
useful when utilizing devices such as analog I/O cards and other data
acquisition peripherals.
- Connectivity. Since the system call interface of LynxOS is just like
UNIX, it has been relatively easy for us to add all the standard UNIX
networking facilities. Our TCP/IP is based on the recently-freed
Berkeley source code with numerous modifications made to it to insure
that LynxOS' real-time performance would not be compromised. Our NFS
is based on the NFS RPC source code from SUN Microsystems, and our
STREAMS interface is faithful to that provided by standard System V
UNIX. In addition, LynxOS networking facilities include all the
familiar network utilities (rsh, rlogin, rcp, telnet, etc.). Standard
UNIX protocols and new protocols can easily be added to LynxOS via either
the STREAMS interface or the Raw Ethernet interface for TCP/IP. We already
have vendors who offer ATM, OSI, and many other network interface protocols
for LynxOS.
- Self-hosted Development Environment. LynxOS offers a complete
UNIX-like self-hosted development environment. The full development
bundle (with NFS, TCP/IP, X, MOTIF, and STREAMS) includes over 300
utilities, all UNIX compatible! An elucidation to this fact is that
virtually all development done on LynxOS at Lynx Real-Time Systems is
done UNDER LynxOS directly! A self-hosted development environment is a
great way to write, debug and test real-time applications. You know
exactly what your target environment can do because you are familiar
with it already. In addition, advanced UNIX utilities like rcs, lex,
awk, and others are available to users to utilize in their development.
- X/Motif. Full implementations of the X11 Window System Release 5 are
available under LynxOS along with the Motif toolkit and window manager
from OSF. Inclusion of these two powerful, networked graphical tools
in LynxOS makes development of graphical interfaces and displays easy.
In addition many graphical development tools, GUI builders, and Widgets
have been ported by vendors to LynxOS to enhance the graphical development
environment.
- ROMability. LynxOS is fully ROMable. Utilizing the "mkromk" utility
(included in the LynxOS development environment) it is possible to
build executable modules of LynxOS applications. These modules, coupled
with the LynxOS kernel, can be burned into an EPROM, downloaded over a
network, or run from the standard system disk. Execution can be performed
in-place or in memory, whichever is desired. In addition, filesystems can
also be included in the ROM or created remotely and mounted using NFS.
In short, all the features of LynxOS can be utilized at any level of
sophistication independent of whether the system is operating out of
ROM or RAM.
- Compliance with Standards. LynxOS was the first multi-platform,
real-time rewrite of UNIX to conform with the NIST POSIX 1003.1 system
call standard. It is also compatible with the System V.4 and BSD 4.3
system call standards. Both COFF and A.OUT load formats are supported
along with the current POSIX 1003.1 real-time standard.
__________
1-4. What platforms does LynxOS run on?
LynxOS is available on a number of different platforms via direct support
from Lynx or via other OEM's and resellers. In addition some vendors have
ported LynxOS to their specific hardware based upon a standard version of
LynxOS. The following standard platforms are currently supported by Lynx:
1) Intel 80386/80486/Pentium AT
2) Motorola MVME 167/MVME 166
3) Motorola MVME 162
4) Motorola MVME 147
5) SPARC-2/SPARC-IPX
6) microSPARC
7) R3000 (Source Code Only)
8) PowerPC 601/603/604 (Porting Kit Q4-94)
(Early Availability Program, July 94)
The following platforms are supported by other vendors:
1) PA-RISC 7100 (Hewlett Packard)
2) PowerPC 601 (Cetia)
__________
1-5. What are the latest releases of LynxOS?
Lynx is moving forward with new releases and maintenance supplements
to proactively update its product offerings. The following product
releases are available from Lynx:
1) Intel 80386/80486/Pentium AT (Release 2.2.1)
2) Motorola MVME 167/MVME 166 (Release 2.2.1)
3) Motorola MVME 162 (Release 2.2.1)
4) Motorola MVME 147 (Release 2.2.0)
5) SPARC-2/SPARC-IPX (Release 2.1.0)
6) microSPARC (Release 2.2.1)
7) R3000 (Source Code Only) (Release 2.1.0)
8) PowerPC 601/603/604 (Porting Kit Q4-94) (Releasw 2.2.1)
(Early Availability Program, July 94)
__________
1-6. How does LynxOS differ from other UNIX-like operating systems?
The basic design of the UNIX operating system was for a time-shared
environment which attempts to be fair to all users with respect to
time and resources. By the nature of their design, UNIX kernels are
not preemptible, are large, cumbersome, and not predictable nor
deterministic, and at best provide soft real-time performance. By
contrast LynxOS had been built from the ground-up to be a deterministic,
high-performance, hard real-time, preemptible, priority based operating
system which provides deterministic, real-time responsiveness with a
completely "open systems" operating system architecture. One of the
advantages of being built from the ground-up has been the ability to
overcome the inherent real-time limitations of the original design of
the UNIX operating system. One design goal was to implement deadline or
deterministic scheduling via simple priority scheduling where the highest
priority task runs, period. The design of LynxOS provides unique approaches
for interrupt and data stream handling which allow the kernel to be
implemented as several prioritized and preemptible kernel tasks which
provide for intermixing of user and kernel tasks at various priorities.
The result is a streamlined, responsive, and preemptible kernel with
very fast deterministic hard real-time response.
__________
1-7. What types of applications can LynxOS be used in?
LynxOS can be used in many applications ranging from a very small
real-time embedded single board controller system to a very large factory
automation system. The OS and/or application may be burned into ROMs,
downloaded from a server over a network, or run on a large scale self
hosted system which may utilize many disk drives, up to 512MB of RAM, and
a very complicated graphical user interface. Some platforms provide
for multiple processor support as well. In many situations real-time is
not the goal as much as deterministic scheduling and very fast response.
LynxOS can be used in many different application areas like:
1) Communications
2) Process Monitoring and Control
3) Machine Control
4) Automated Testing
5) Aerospace and Aviation
6) Security Systems
7) Instrumentation
8) Networked Office Equipment
Below is a small sample of companies who have developed applications
using LynxOS:
1) Mainstream Data, High Speed Communications
2) Hughes Training, Flight Simulation
3) Salisbury Robotics, Robot Control Systems
4) CERN, Systems and Facility Control Systems
5) Starlight Networks. Video Application Server
6) Home Shopping Network, Video-On-Demand Server
7) Nynex, Voice Dialing System
8) NASA Ames, Wind Tunnel Control
9) IBM, Space Station Freedom
__________
1-8. What is POSIX?
The POSIX specification is a standard developed by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to define the interface
of the operating system at a high level to provide program compatibility
at the source code level and to promote platform independent code.
POSIX stands for: Portable Operating System Interface for Computer
Environments and is loosely based on the UNIX operating system. The
specification is part of the ISO/IEC 9945 and defines the Systems
Application Program Interface (API) for the development of "open" or
portable code in UNIX-like environments. There are various parts to the
complete POSIX specification the most applicable sections are:
1) POSIX.1 Operating system interface
2) POSIX.4 Extensions for real-time
3) POSIX.4a Threads Extensions
__________
1-9. Is LynxOS POSIX Conformant?
LynxOS was certified by the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) to be conformant to the POSIX.1 specification via the
NIST-PCTS 151-1 test suite on October 14,1993. LynxOS is the first and
currently ONLY real-time operating system to receive POSIX.1 conformance
certification.
__________
1-10. What is the difference between POSIX Conformance and POSIX Compliance?
The difference between POSIX Conformance and Compliance is based in the
definitions of the terms. Conformance has a precise and reliable legal
definition describing the complete adherence to a set, precise, agreed-upon
standard. Compliance, on the other hand has a more vague definition; to
yield to ones wish, to agree a requirement. The term "Compliance" is often
used by marketing to imply the same set of functionality when in fact this
not the case. If a product has not been verified and certified by NIST is
should be assumed NOT to conform to the POSIX specifications. For more
information about POSIX conformance please consult the article in the
February 21, 1994 issue of Embedded Systems by Gurjot Rajpal entitled,
"POSIX: Conformance Vs. Compliance".
__________
1-11. How can I get a list of POSIX Conformant Operating Systems?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) maintains two
registration lists of POSIX Conformant Operating Systems based upon the
certification test used. The registry list can be obtained from NIST via
email. NIST has an automated message service which will respond to specific
enquiries. To obtain the lists from NIST send the appropriate message below
to:
po...@nist.gov
send 151-1reg (For Certification using FIPS 151-1)
send 151-2reg (For Certification using FIPS 151-2)
send index (For an index of NIST Articles and Documents)
__________
1-12. What are the advantages of POSIX conformance?
The POSIX standard has evolved out of the basic pressures from the
industry to have some form of compatibility; as historically applications
could not be easily moved to different operating systems or hardware
architectures. As the result of POSIX conformance, applications can now
run on open architectures which provide the following direct advantages
for users and developers:
1) Vendor independence
2) Protection against technological obsolescence
3) Interoperability between dissimilar architectures
4) Increased availability of off-the-shelf software
5) A larger pool of trained programmers and users already
familiar with a standard environment.
6) Reduced overall costs for project development.
__________
1-13. What is POSIX.1 (spec. 1003.1)?
The POSIX.1 specification group is the Systems Application Program Interface
(API) which is language independent. The specification provides the
definition of the operating system interface at a high level to provide
program compatibility at the source code level and to promote platform
independent code. The POSIX.1 specification provides the POSIX standardized
interface for the following functions:
1) File system organization
2) System configuration
3) Error messages
4) Application environment
5) Process creation, management, and termination
6) Process environment
7) Exception conditions
8) Timer operations
9) File and directory operations
10) Record and file locking
11) Device specific functions
12) C Language specific routines
13) User and group database information
14) Data interchange formats
__________
1-14. What is POSIX.4 (spec. 1003.4)?
The POSIX.4 specification group is the Realtime Extensions to the base
POSIX.1 specification. The POSIX.4 specification provides the POSIX
standardized interface for the following functions:
1) Asynchronous events
2) Priority interrupts and scheduling
3) Preemptive scheduling
4) Memory locking
5) High-performance file system (Contiguous Files)
(POSIX Realtime Files)
6) Realtime timers
7) Shared memory
8) Semaphores
9) Message passing
10) Synchronous I/O
An OS must first be POSIX.1 conformant before POSIX.4 conformance can be
achieved. The integration of the POSIX.4 specification into the POSIX.1
specification is known as POSIX.1b.
__________
1-15. What is POSIX.4a (spec. 1003.4a)?
The POSIX.4a specification group is the Threads Extensions to the POSIX.4
Realtime Extensions specification. The POSIX.4a specification provides the
POSIX standardized interface for multiple flows of control in the same
POSIX.1 process. A process can be divided into tasks of execution which
are independent of each other but work in the same process space.
__________
1-16. What is POSIX.1b (spec. 1003.1b)?
The POSIX.1b specification is the application of the POSIX.4 specification
to the POSIX.1 specification. The combined specification is referred to as
POSIX.1b.
__________
1-17. What development environments can be used by LynxOS?
LynxOS can be used in several different development environments
based upon the system design and hardware requirements. LynxOS
provides by default, a complete self-hosted development environment
which allows for the development and testing of the application on a
native system. LynxOS can also be used in a client/server arrangement
or a cross development environment. In the client/server environment
LynxOS is used as the development system and the objects are downloaded
to the target system. In the cross development environment SunOS is used
as the development environment and the objects are downloaded to the
target system.
__________
1-18. What development tools are available with LynxOS?
LynxOS provides a complete set of development tools for use in
constructing applications and systems. Along with a complete
code revision control system (RCS), Lynx provides the following
compilers and development support facilities:
1) CC (Lynx proprietary C compiler)
2) GCC (GNU C compiler for LynxOS)
3) G++ (GNU C++ compiler for LynxOS)
4) GDB (GNU application debugger for LynxOS)
5) GPROF (GNU profiler for LynxOS)
6) GAWK (GNU AWK for LynxOS)
7) SED (Streams Editor)
8) BISON (GNU YACC clone for LynxOS)
9) FLEX (GNU LEX clone for LynxOS)
10) MAKE (GNU MAKE for LynxOS)
11) SKDB (Simple Kernel Debugger for LynxOS)
12) EMACS (GNU configurable text editor)
__________
1-19. Is Ada language support available for LynxOS?
Ada language support for LynxOS is available from a third party
provider. The Ada compiler is available from Alsys Inc.:
Alsys Inc. (617) 270-0030
67 S. Bedford St.
Burlington, MA 01803
The Ada language is not directly supported by Lynx.
__________
1-20. What database support is available for LynxOS?
Database support for LynxOS is available from third party providers.
The following database products are currently available for LynxOS:
1) CISAM (Infosoft Inc.)
2) Empress RDBMS (Empress Software Inc.)
3) INFORMIX-ESQL/C (Infosoft Inc.)
4) INFORMIX-SE (Infosoft Inc.)
5) Zip_RTDBMS (DBx Inc.)
DBx Inc. (609) 667-9322
P.O. Box 8446
Cherry Hill, NJ 08002
Infosoft Inc. (408) 366-0900
10670 N. Tantau Avenue
Cupertino, Ca 95014 (US Only)
Empress Software Inc. (301) 220-1919
6401 Golden Triangle Drive.
Greenbelt, MD 20770
__________
1-21. How is LynxOS Distributed?
The LynxOS distribution contains software, documentation, and
the product use license for one of the following product types:
1) Binaries Only Complete Product Binaries
2) Porting Kit Binaries and Source for Platform Porting
3) Full Source Complete Product Source
The LynxOS software is available to customers on one or more of the
following media depending upon specific platform supported hardware:
1) 3.5" Floppy Diskettes
2) 5.25" Floppy Diskettes
3) DC600A Cartridge Tape
NOTE:
Not all formats are supported for all platforms.
__________
1-22. What Product Components are available from Lynx?
Lynx provides a full range of product configuration options from a
stand-alone runtime to a full development source bundle. Below is
a description of the operating system products
1) Kernel Only Just the LynxOS kernel, without any
utilities or compilers. This is for
OEMs who are building embedded
applications around LynxOS.
2) Runtime OS A configurable kernel and subset of
utilities without a compiler. This
is for developers who are shipping
products based on LynxOS.
3) Development OS or A configurable kernel and standard set
Base OS of utilities with a compiler support
libraries and development facilities.
4) TCP/IP The TCP/IP package is added to the Base OS
to provide the standard TCP/IP facilities
based upon the Berkeley Tahoe Release (BSD).
5) NFS The NFS package is added to the Base OS and
TCP/IP to provide the standard client and
server Network File Service facilities based
upon the SunOS 4.1 Release.
6) Streams The Streams package is added to the Base OS
and provides the Transport Layer Interface
facilities based upon the AT&T Streams for
UNIX Release 3.2
7) X11 The X11 package is added to the Base OS and
TCP/IP and provides the client and server
system graphical interface facilities and
libraries based upon the R5 Release.
8) Motif The Motif package is added to the Base OS,
TCP/IP and X11 and provides the OSF graphical
interface and development facilities based
upon the OSF 1.2.1 Release(AT), 1.1.2 Release
(All Other Platforms).
9) Netboot The Netboot package is used in conjunction
with the Base OS and TCP/IP and provides the
ROM Boot facilities to perform remote booting
over the network based upon TFTP.
10) SCMP The SCMP package is used in conjunction with
the BASE OS and TCP/IP and provides support
for multiple processors in an MVME system to
work in a separate but sharable environment.
11) Dev. Bundle The Development Bundle package consists of
the Base OS, TCP/IP, NFS, Streams, X11, and
Motif and provides full development facilities
for the development of applications, drivers,
and systems. Note: Netboot and SCMP are NOT
included in the Development Bundle.
__________
1-23. How do I get in touch with Lynx Sales?
Lynx maintains sales offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia
with corporate offices located in San Jose, California. All Lynx sales
offices can be reached by phone, FAX, and mail. In addition, the corporate
sales office can be reached by electronic mail (email) as well at:
The contact information for all Lynx sales offices is listed below:
Corporate Offices and Western United States:
Phone: (408) 879-3900
FAX: (408) 879-3920
Mail: Lynx Real-Time Systems
2239 Samaritan Drive
San Jose, CA 95124
Central United States:
Phone: (214) 663-0558
FAX: (214) 663-0559
Mail: Lynx Real-Time Systems
5050 Quorum Drive Suite 700
Texas Commerce Bank Bldg.
Dallas, TX 75240
Eastern United States:
Phone: (508) 740-2700
FAX: (508) 740-0513
Mail: Lynx Real-Time Systems
One Salem Green, Suite #420
Salem, Ma 01970
Europe:
Phone: (33) 1-3085-0600
FAX: (33) 1-3085-0606
Mail: Lynx Real-Time Systems
2 Allee de la Fresnerie
78330 Fontenay le Fleury, France
U.K.:
Phone: (44) 1-798-344-128
FAX: (44) 1-798-344-343
Mail: Lynx Real-Time Systems U.K.
Allendene, Northmead, Petworth,
West Sussex
GU28 9NJ, England
Asia:
Phone: (81) 33-449-3131
FAX: (81) 33-449-3803
Mail: Lynx Japan
Nissin Software Corporation
Asahi Seimei Ebisu Building
Ebisu 1-3-1 Shibuya-Ku 150
Tokyo, Japan
__________
1-24. How do I get in touch with Lynx Technical Support?
Lynx Technical Support is located with the corporate offices in
San Jose, California. Technical support is provided to all
Domestic customers and International Distributors from the Los
Gatos offices. Support for International customers is provided
by the International Distributor for the particular region. In
all cases, technical support is provided on a contract basis.
Lynx Technical Support can be reached by phone, FAX, electronic
mail (email), or mail as follows:
Email: sup...@lynx.com
Phone: (408) 879-3940
FAX: (408) 879-3945
Mail: Technical Support
Lynx Real-Time Systems
2239 Samaritan Drive
San Jose, CA 95124
__________
1-25. Is Technical Training available for LynxOS?
Lynx Technical Training is conducted at the corporate offices in
San Jose, California. All training courses are one (1) week in
length and cost $1,950.00 per person. Training is provided on a
regularly scheduled basis (see schedule below). Training is also
offered on-site on a contract basis. Customization of the training
to the specific needs of the customer is available as well. Please
contact your sales representative or Lynx Technical Training for
more information at:
The standard courses offered by Lynx are:
1) Programming Workshop
2) Device Driver Workshop
3) Advanced Device Driver Workshop
4) LynxOS Internals Workshop
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1-26. What is the current Lynx Technical Training schedule?
The Lynx Training schedule for 1996 is as follows:
Programming Device Drivers Advanced Device Drivers LynxOS Internals
___________ ______________ _______________________ ________________
January 8-12 January 15-19 January 22-26
March 4-8 March 11-15 Not Offered
May 6-10 May 13-17 May 20-24
July 8-12 July 15-19 July 22-26 July 29-Aug.2
October 7-11 October 14-18 October 21-25 Oct. 28-Nov. 1
December 2-6 December 9-13 Not Offered Not Offered
Lynx reserves the right to change class schedules up to two (2) weeks
in advance. In the event a class is canceled by Lynx, enrollees are
entitled to either a full refund of the course fees or may sign up for
the class at a later scheduled date.
All courses are held at Lynx Real-Time Systems' corporate offices in
San Jose, California. Additional courses may be scheduled at the
corporate offices or at the customers location on a contract basis.
Please call for details and availability:
All courses start at 9:00 AM on Mondays and run Monday through Friday.
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1-27. Is there a BBS for LynxOS?
Lynx Technical Support maintains a BBS system for the use of it's
customers. The BBS contains technical information, patch files,
maintenance supplements, public domain software for LynxOS, and
areas for customer contributions and postings. Binary files are
available for supported customers only. The BBS requires user
registration which is conducted during the initial login session.
This procedure is intuitive and relatively painless. Registrations
are validated with 48-72 hours to allow supported customers access
to binary files. The Technical Support BBS has multiple lines using
Telebit T3000 modems. The interface is configured for 8 data bits,
no parity, with one stop bit (8/N/1). The Technical Support BBS
can be accessed at:
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1-28. Is there a newsgroup for LynxOS?
A lynx newsgroup was established by open voting in 1993. The newsgroup
is intended to promote discussion and information exchanges between users
of LynxOS. The newsgroup is reviewed daily by a member of the technical
support staff for critical issues but is not intended as a forum for
technical support. The Lynx newsgroup name is:
comp.os.lynx.
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1-29. Is there an ftp site for LynxOS?
Lynx converted its Internet connection from a UUCP connection to
a direct Internet connection running at 56K BPS in early 1994.
As the result of this conversion a limited ftp site was established
to facilitate the transfer of patches, contributed packages, and
customer source for problem demonstration. The system is configured
in a restricted firewall configuration with limited access from the
Internet via anonymous ftp. Users have limited access to directories
in the public access area; pub. The subdirectories of primary interest
are the incoming and outgoing directories. The outgoing directory is
organized into subdirectories based upon platform. The ftp site can
be accessed via anonymous ftp at:
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Section 2: Technical Section:
______________________________
2-1. Is an MMU required for LynxOS?
One of the primary advantages of LynxOS is its use of the Memory Management
Unit (MMU) of the processor. LynxOS makes use of the MMU on all of the
supported processors. LynxOS uses the MMU to implement very efficiently
in hardware a virtual addressing space of 4GB per process. This allows
the kernel and all process to have their own protected memory space that
cannot be tampered with or affected by any other processes. The memory on
the system is used more efficiently when utilizing virtual memory because
the physical memory is mapped to the virtual space in pages which are each
4K bytes in sizes and are not required to be contiguous. This allows for
better memory space utilization and helps to minimize memory fragmentation.
Since the MMU is used instead of a software implementation, the system is
more efficient and the OS has less overall overhead. Debugging of user
applications is enhanced due to the protection mechanism provided to
prevent processes memory corruption and simplified as well because each
process is contained in its own virtual memory space.
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2-2. Is a floating point coprocessor required for LynxOS?
The LynxOS kernel itself does not require a coprocessor or Floating
Point Unit (FPU). However, some of the utilities and applications
which are provided with LynxOS or run on LynxOS do require floating
point support. In general, Lynx does not provide a software floating
point emulator or floating point library for it's products. The
exception to this is for the MVME 162 platform, where a floating point
library is supplied to support the LC version of the platform. Target
and ported systems can be configured without a floating point unit.
However, these configurations cannot be used for development and not all
utilities will operate with these configurations. As a general rule
when configuring a system, floating point support is required in
some form.
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2-3. Is a console required to boot LynxOS?
The console device is NOT required to boot LynxOS and the system can
be reconfigured to not use a console device. However, the installation
distribution is configured to utilize a console device and is required
for installation. Custom configurations may opt to exclude the use of
the device. For some configurations the console is a graphics display
adapter. These configurations of LynxOS can be configured to use a
serial console device or as a custom configuration without a console
device.
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2-4. Is LynxOS ROMable?
One of the important features of a operating system to be used in
embedded applications is ROMability. LynxOS is fully ROMable and
can be configured to the designers requirement. The ROM able system
may include or exclude a ram disk file system or may utilize a floppy
or hard disk file system. When building a ROM able kernel a file system
of some nature is always required. The sizing of the kernel can be
modified by the inclusion/exclusion of device drivers, system support
functions and the table sizes specified in /usr/include/param.h. Sizing
of the kernel is based upon resultant execution size not ROM storage size
as the running kernel is always larger than the stored kernel image due
to memory allocation via sysbrk() and uninitialized data storage. The
size of the ROM text segment for a RISC processor will be approx. 1.6 times
larger than the ROM text segment for a CISC processor due to the fixed
instruction size of a RISC processor. Bare bones ROM kernels have been
created as small as 190K bytes in size for the 386/486 platform.
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2-5. Can I boot LynxOS over the network?
LynxOS can be booted over the network via TFTP Boot which is provided in
EPROM form with support files as part of the LynxOS Netboot Product. The
EPROM contains the boot code required to initiate the TFTP connection
with a server system, transfer of the kernel boot image, and finally
loading and execution of the kernel image. A LynxOS Netboot configuration
requires the server system to be able to support TFTP and RARP. For
the SPARC-2 and the microSPARC platforms the Netboot EPROM is not necessary
as the Open Boot Prom (OBP) for those platforms provides required TFTP
support.
The BOOTP remote booting protocol is NOT supported by LynxOS.
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2-6. What GNU tools are available for LynxOS?
1) GCC (GNU C compiler for LynxOS)
2) G++ (GNU C++ compiler for LynxOS)
3) GDB (GNU application debugger for LynxOS)
4) GPROF (GNU profiler for LynxOS)
5) GAWK (GNU AWK for LynxOS)
6) BISON (GNU YACC for LynxOS)
7) FLEX (GNU LEX for LynxOS)
8) MAKE (GNU MAKE for LynxOS)
9) EMACS (GNU configurable text editor)
The above is list of the GNU development tolls which are provided. Lynx
also provides many GNU facilities as well. A partial list of these facilities
includes:
BASH, BC, CPIO, DIFF, FGREP, GREP, IDENT, PATCH, SED, SHELUTILS,
TCSH, AND XARGS.
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2-7. Does LynxOS support SLIP?
The Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) support is provided by the
LynxOS TCP/IP package. SLIP provides for the transmission of Internet
Protocol (IP) datagram packets over asynchronous RS-232 serial lines.
Lynx SLIP support has been tested with various other UNIX operating systems
for compatibility. The operation of SLIP under LynxOS has been verified
using both direct and modem interfaced connection up to 115000 BPS.
For assistance in configuring SLIP please refer to the Device Facility
section of the LynxOS User's Manual, Volume 1C.
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2-8. Does LynxOS support Virtual Memory Paging?
The LynxOS virtual memory facilities provide support for demand paging.
This feature is optionally configured via the setup user at installation
time. The demand pager uses a contiguous file or separate raw partition
as the swap area which must be configured to be 2.0 times the size of
the installed system RAM. The demand pager in integrated into the kernel
and does not run as a separate daemon. The demand pager is started via
the utility vmstart which is run at a set priority from the /bin/rc file.
The priority set for the VM pager should be slightly higher than the
default process priority of 17. A recommended priority value would be in
the range of 20-25. This priority setting becomes a quasi real-time
fence as tasks which are run at a lower priority than the VM pager are
eligible to be paged and are considered non-real-time tasks. While tasks
which are run at a higher priority than the VM pager are NOT eligible to
be paged and are considered real-time tasks. Paging eligibility is
determined at task load time only. The most important feature provided
by demand paging is the ability to run programs or applications which are
physically larger than the RAM installed in the system.
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2-9. What is a contiguous file?
A contiguous file is a section of the disk consisting of contiguous physical
blocks which are allocated and then treated as a high performance raw
device. A contiguous file does not use the normal buffered file system and
must be accessed in block units of the file system. The current file system
uses a 512 byte block which means all accesses to contiguous files are made
in units of 512 bytes. A contiguous file is created using the mkcontig utility
which must be able to find the required contiguous space on the disk. The
process of copying or archiving a contiguous file does not preserve its
contiguous nature. The copying of a contiguous file results in a
non-contiguous standard file. To copy to a contiguous file the contiguous
space must be created using the mkcontig facility. The copying process then
can be performed in the standard way.
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2-10. Can LynxOS read/write MS/DOS files?
LynxOS provides the ability to copy MS/DOS files to and from a MS/DOS floppy
file system to the Lynx file system using the dosread and doswrite utilities.
These utilities, along with the dosdir utility, do NOT supporting accessing
a MS/DOS formatted hard disk.
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2-11. Can LynxOS coexist with another OS on the same disk?
LynxOS has been shown to be able to coexist with other operating systems
on the same hard disk. The disk can contain a maximum of 4 separate
partitions which can be made active using the mkpart utility or the
setactive utility. The configuration of multiple operating systems has been
conducted successfully with the following operating systems:
1) SCO
2) BSD
3) SunOS
4) OS/2
5) MS/DOS
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2-12. How do I shutdown LynxOS?
LynxOS does not provide a directly compatible System V or BSD shutdown
facility. Instead the reboot facility is used to properly shut the
system down and to set various flags for the system at boot time. To
perform a proper shutdown the user must be logged-in as root or have
root privileges and issue the reboot command:
reboot -a.
The operating System will display the following message on the root (0)
console device::
**** Lynx Is Down ****,
at which time you may remove the power to the system. When the system
is powered up the next time the -a flag instructs the operating system
to boot directly into multi-user mode. There are many other flags which
can be set using the reboot facility. Please consult the REBOOT man page
in the Utility Program section of the LynxOS User's Manual, Volume 1A.
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2-13. Is the SMC Elite Ultra Ethernet adapter supported under LynxOS?
Support for the SMC Elite Ultra Ethernet adapter is not currently part of
the standard product distribution for the LynxOS AT platform. A
supplemental driver which supports this adapter can be obtained from
Lynx Technical Support. Please contact Lynx Real-Time Systems Technical
Support at:
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