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Enea Linux v3.0 provides the best in class Linux support for customized hardware

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, and LINUXCON, Japan May 30, 2013 – Enea® (NASDAQ OMX Nordic:ENEA), is today announcing Enea Linux v3.0 – a comprehensive cross-development tool chain and runtime environment with guaranteed performance and quality of service (QoS), flexible support offerings, worldwide support and maintenance, and expert professional services.

Enea Linux v3.0 features the latest available release of the Yocto ProjectTM, v1.4 “Dylan”, which brings significant improvements in terms of decreased build-times, support for Linux kernel 3.8, plus Enea's automated test framework “ptest”. Ptest integrates test suites from all open source projects whose applications are used in Yocto, and makes it possible for Yocto to dramatically increase the amount of tests that are performed on the Yocto Project Linux packages.

Commercial open source tools packaging

Enea Linux 3.0 provides a commercial grade packaging of the open source tools that engineers actually use. It comes as a set of EclipseTM plugins accessible directly from within the familiar EclipseTM environments. This includes using the cross-compiler for application development, debugging and profiling target applications, rebuilding file systems images and running QEMU (a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer) simulations.

What about real-time?

Enea has a long history of optimizing the real-time performance in embedded systems, especially within networking, and provides kernels in several different flavors in Enea Linux 3.0, with different characteristics for different use cases:

  • Vanilla – an unmodified kernel from kernel.org or derivate without behavior-altering patches or configurations applied, such as the PREEMPT_RT patch or the nohz/dynamic tick patch.
  • PREEMPT_RT – an established patch series that attempts to lower latencies by slightly altering behavior of a set of core functions in the kernel.
  • Core isolation and dynamic tick – a very effective way to isolate one or more cores to do low latency and high throughput tasks by partitioning CPU cores in a multicore system.

Enea Linux allows for several run-times to co-exist and Enea offers several different alternatives depending on the use-case, which may or may not run in core isolation. One example is the “LightWeight RunTime” by Enea – a run-time with user-space threading using an Enea OSEck® API. It offers very fast context switching, and is a perfect choice for programs that are already written or will be written in a standard RTOS-like paradigm with threads and message passing between them.

Contributions to ARM and the Linaro community

Linaro is the place where the world’s leading technology companies define the future of Linux on ARM, and Enea’s membership in the Linaro Networking Group (LNG) reinforces the commitment to ARM and the networking space. Being an independent Linux vendor catering to the top telecom equipment manufacturers in the world, Enea sees Linaro and the LNG as obvious catalysts for the businesses of its Linux customers, and a means for Enea to contribute to the entire Linux community. With one exception, Enea is the only embedded Linux distributor who participates in the Linaro work.

The Best Linux Support for Customized Hardware

As an independent software vendor, Enea has close co-operation and technical alignment with leading hardware manufacturers, ensuring that the software solutions are optimized for the best silicon architectures in the market. All service options come with on-site, bridge or off-shore delivery options.

Enea Linux Customization

Enea Linux is released as a set of packages on a particular kernel with a set of features, but Enea offers full customization abilities for customers with specific demands and Enea Linux may be altered in many ways:

  • Add more programs, either third party or open source.
  • Alter how the kernel or specific packages are configured, or alter the entire distribution configuration.
  • Extend or otherwise alter the selection of packages that Enea offers.
  • Stream-line the distribution, the kernel or specific packages for specific needs or goals, for speed, for size or for other metrics.

Enea also offers a range of service commitments, from turn-key customized software development services and board engineering, to development and porting of drivers.

For more information visit www.enea.com/linux or contact: