7 ms·

Anyone working on QNX based system here?

by ahati 8y ago

jayalpha 8y ago
I found this impressive https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/ https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/
mmorriso 8y ago
Yes, I maintain a few legacy system that still operate partially on QNX 4.25 It did a few really cool things for its time, considering that TCP/IP networking was an optional add-on when we originally deployed.
lsiebert 8y ago
I don't myself, but my brother, who designs and builds stages for U2 and other musicians, uses it for automation (lights etc.)
- ahati 8y ago
  Does he use the AMX systems. That is Harman, Harman used to own qnx before.
Kenji 8y ago
Yes. I work with QNX6.6 daily. I also worked with QNX6.5 and QNX7.0. It's a real blast to work with the mikrokernel. It's a really cool system, and the kernel stability is excellent. Feels good that when a low level driver crashes, your system just goes on as if nothing happened (except, of course, the applications that need this driver). Speaking of drivers, the driver situation on QNX is a bit sad, simply because there are few drivers and the ones that exist aren't as high quality and well tested because QNX is niche. Still, if there was a QNX environment that is as progressive as Linux Ubuntu (concerning GUI, drivers, etc.) and OpenSource, I'd definitely use QNX as my main OS.
- na85 8y ago
  >QNX is niche What is the most mainstream or perhaps "least niche" of the real time embedded OSes?
  - anta40 8y ago
    Hmm... BlackBerry 10, perhaps? https://help.blackberry.com/id/blackberry-security-overview/latest/blackberry-security-overview-html/awi1402930370721.html https://help.blackberry.com/id/blackberry-security-overview/... BlackBerry nowadays is... well let's say the mobile world is basically divided into 2 sides these days: Android and iOS :p
    - jjoonathan 8y ago
      What? BlackBerry is realtime? Why?
      - monocasa 8y ago
        So you have the option of running the baseband on the application processor to save costs if need be, among other reasons.
        ahati 8y ago
        You need a hypervisor for that. Qnx brought that later.
        dfox 8y ago
        You don't. Symbian EKA2 platforms (eg. S60 3rd edition and later) used to run baseband as userspace threads on same core as user applications. I would not be that surprised if that was main enabler for Nokia E51/52, ie. full-featured smartphone in executive-phone form factor (small and in the first place thin candy-bar).
        deleted 8y ago
Cyph0n 8y ago
Cisco's high-end router operating system, IOS-XR, has two flavors: an older one built on top of a QNX kernel and the current one built on top of Linux. The QNX version is still supported but is not in active development.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  Do you know any details on the reason why Cisco switched from QNX to Linux?
  - tyingq 8y ago
    The official line... "The 64-bit Linux infrastructure is the de facto standard that is being used across the industry today...So it gives us more development tools, more tool chains and also more access into the third party development ecosystem." http://mobile.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/cisco-evolves-ios-xr-network-operating-system-with-linux.html http://mobile.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/cisco-evo...
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
      That seems to agree with what I've heard internally. Granted, I'm new, so I didn't go through the migration phase. XR itself provides abstractions on top of QNX and Linux, so devs working on platform independent code are not really affected.
      - tyingq 8y ago
        Maybe also because things like DPDK (or similar) made it possible for Linix to play at that scale?
        Cyph0n 8y ago
        The routers I am talking cannot do packet processing on the CPU. We are talking about 3.2 Tbps per linecard with 10 linecards per router. All data plane activity is done on custom in-house ASICs called network processors (NPs). The CPU only handles control plane traffic and general administration.
exDM69 8y ago
Yes. Working for a HW vendor catering to automotive and embedded customers. QNX is one of the five or so OSes we work with.
- insulanian 8y ago
  What are the other ones?
  - exDM69 8y ago
    Linux (several flavors), Windows, QNX, GH Integrity, FreeRTOS and a handful of in-house and clients' proprietary special-purpose OSes.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      Interesting. I would have expected that also - VxWorks (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VxWorks&oldid=857084461 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VxWorks&oldid=857...) - Nucleus (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nucleus_RTOS&oldid=858384411 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nucleus_RTOS&oldi...) - perhaps ThreadX (the "spiritual successor of Nucleus") (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ThreadX&oldid=852836528 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ThreadX&oldid=852...) are on this list.
bregma 8y ago
Yes. I work for QNX. I can answer any technical questions.
- vmsp 8y ago
  What's your goto intro/reference to QNX's internals?
  - bregma 8y ago
    I have access to the code. There is no more reliable reference. The source code is remarkably well organized and clearly coded and has massive amounts of unit tests. When the code is not enough, I go to http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/7.0.0/#com.qnx.doc.qnxsdp.nav/topic/bookset.html http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/7.0.0/#com.qnx.doc.qnxsdp...
- ahati 8y ago
  How much is the difference of qnx7 and 6.4 at kernel source level? 6.4 source is available in github from time qnx was made open source.
  - Kenji 8y ago
    I can tell you some of that. We ported all our applications from QNX6.5 to QNX6.6 and then QNX7.0. They deprecated some POSIX calls like posix_spawn_file_actions_addopen (at least in QNX6.6 documentation they mention it's not fully implemented and it is indeed broken). They made the QNX7.0 kernel instrumented-only (there are no longer non-instrumented versions). They changed lots of low level stuff that is outside the kernel, like throwing out photon and replacing it with screen library, completely replacing the PCI server, making changes to the console, security patches, and so on. But since it's a microkernel, this is mostly in userland.
  - bregma 8y ago
    The biggest difference between 6.6 and 7.0 in the kernel is mostly that SMP is always enabled and 64-bit targets are first-class citizens. There are plenty of minor changes, but the kernel itself is very, very small. There are plenty of changes to the userspace runtime, but the question was about the kernel. Oh, also, 7.0 has an ISO 26262 certified variant. Not a technical difference, but an important one.
TheSoftwareGuy 8y ago
Yup, my companies product is actually mentioned on the first page of the link
cornellwright 8y ago
I've used it on medical devices.

Anyone working on QNX based system here?

by ahati 8y ago

Anyone working on QNX based system here?

I found this impressive https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/ https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/

mmorriso 8y ago

Yes, I maintain a few legacy system that still operate partially on QNX 4.25 It did a few really cool things for its time, considering that TCP/IP networking was an optional add-on when we originally deployed.

lsiebert 8y ago

I don't myself, but my brother, who designs and builds stages for U2 and other musicians, uses it for automation (lights etc.)

ahati 8y ago
Does he use the AMX systems. That is Harman, Harman used to own qnx before.

Kenji 8y ago

Yes. I work with QNX6.6 daily. I also worked with QNX6.5 and QNX7.0. It's a real blast to work with the mikrokernel. It's a really cool system, and the kernel stability is excellent. Feels good that when a low level driver crashes, your system just goes on as if nothing happened (except, of course, the applications that need this driver). Speaking of drivers, the driver situation on QNX is a bit sad, simply because there are few drivers and the ones that exist aren't as high quality and well tested because QNX is niche. Still, if there was a QNX environment that is as progressive as Linux Ubuntu (concerning GUI, drivers, etc.) and OpenSource, I'd definitely use QNX as my main OS.

na85 8y ago
>QNX is niche What is the most mainstream or perhaps "least niche" of the real time embedded OSes?
- anta40 8y ago
  Hmm... BlackBerry 10, perhaps? https://help.blackberry.com/id/blackberry-security-overview/latest/blackberry-security-overview-html/awi1402930370721.html https://help.blackberry.com/id/blackberry-security-overview/... BlackBerry nowadays is... well let's say the mobile world is basically divided into 2 sides these days: Android and iOS :p
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    What? BlackBerry is realtime? Why?
    - monocasa 8y ago
      So you have the option of running the baseband on the application processor to save costs if need be, among other reasons.
      - ahati 8y ago
        You need a hypervisor for that. Qnx brought that later.
        dfox 8y ago
        You don't. Symbian EKA2 platforms (eg. S60 3rd edition and later) used to run baseband as userspace threads on same core as user applications. I would not be that surprised if that was main enabler for Nokia E51/52, ie. full-featured smartphone in executive-phone form factor (small and in the first place thin candy-bar).
        deleted 8y ago

Cyph0n 8y ago

Cisco's high-end router operating system, IOS-XR, has two flavors: an older one built on top of a QNX kernel and the current one built on top of Linux. The QNX version is still supported but is not in active development.

wolfgke 8y ago
Do you know any details on the reason why Cisco switched from QNX to Linux?
- tyingq 8y ago
  The official line... "The 64-bit Linux infrastructure is the de facto standard that is being used across the industry today...So it gives us more development tools, more tool chains and also more access into the third party development ecosystem." http://mobile.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/cisco-evolves-ios-xr-network-operating-system-with-linux.html http://mobile.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/cisco-evo...
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    That seems to agree with what I've heard internally. Granted, I'm new, so I didn't go through the migration phase. XR itself provides abstractions on top of QNX and Linux, so devs working on platform independent code are not really affected.
    - tyingq 8y ago
      Maybe also because things like DPDK (or similar) made it possible for Linix to play at that scale?
      - Cyph0n 8y ago
        The routers I am talking cannot do packet processing on the CPU. We are talking about 3.2 Tbps per linecard with 10 linecards per router. All data plane activity is done on custom in-house ASICs called network processors (NPs). The CPU only handles control plane traffic and general administration.

exDM69 8y ago

Yes. Working for a HW vendor catering to automotive and embedded customers. QNX is one of the five or so OSes we work with.

insulanian 8y ago
What are the other ones?
- exDM69 8y ago
  Linux (several flavors), Windows, QNX, GH Integrity, FreeRTOS and a handful of in-house and clients' proprietary special-purpose OSes.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    Interesting. I would have expected that also - VxWorks (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VxWorks&oldid=857084461 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VxWorks&oldid=857...) - Nucleus (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nucleus_RTOS&oldid=858384411 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nucleus_RTOS&oldi...) - perhaps ThreadX (the "spiritual successor of Nucleus") (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ThreadX&oldid=852836528 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ThreadX&oldid=852...) are on this list.

bregma 8y ago

Yes. I work for QNX. I can answer any technical questions.

vmsp 8y ago
What's your goto intro/reference to QNX's internals?
- bregma 8y ago
  I have access to the code. There is no more reliable reference. The source code is remarkably well organized and clearly coded and has massive amounts of unit tests. When the code is not enough, I go to http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/7.0.0/#com.qnx.doc.qnxsdp.nav/topic/bookset.html http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/7.0.0/#com.qnx.doc.qnxsdp...
ahati 8y ago
How much is the difference of qnx7 and 6.4 at kernel source level? 6.4 source is available in github from time qnx was made open source.
- Kenji 8y ago
  I can tell you some of that. We ported all our applications from QNX6.5 to QNX6.6 and then QNX7.0. They deprecated some POSIX calls like posix_spawn_file_actions_addopen (at least in QNX6.6 documentation they mention it's not fully implemented and it is indeed broken). They made the QNX7.0 kernel instrumented-only (there are no longer non-instrumented versions). They changed lots of low level stuff that is outside the kernel, like throwing out photon and replacing it with screen library, completely replacing the PCI server, making changes to the console, security patches, and so on. But since it's a microkernel, this is mostly in userland.
- bregma 8y ago
  The biggest difference between 6.6 and 7.0 in the kernel is mostly that SMP is always enabled and 64-bit targets are first-class citizens. There are plenty of minor changes, but the kernel itself is very, very small. There are plenty of changes to the userspace runtime, but the question was about the kernel. Oh, also, 7.0 has an ISO 26262 certified variant. Not a technical difference, but an important one.

TheSoftwareGuy 8y ago

Yup, my companies product is actually mentioned on the first page of the link

cornellwright 8y ago

I've used it on medical devices.