NuttX RTOS

Last Updated: August 10, 2008



Table of Contents

Overview.
What is NuttX?
Downloads.
Where can I get NuttX? What is the current development status?
Supported Platforms.
What target platforms has NuttX been ported to?
Development Environments.
What kinds of host cross-development platforms can be used with NuttX?
Memory Footprint.
Just how big is it? Do I have enough memory to use NuttX?
Licensing.
Are there any licensing restrictions for the use of NuttX? (Almost none) Will there be problems if I link my proprietary code with NuttX? (No)
Release History
What has changed in the last release of NuttX? What unreleased changes are pending in CVS?
Bugs, Issues, Things-To-Do.
Software is never finished nor ever tested well enough. (Do you want to help develop NuttX? If so, send me an email).
Other Documentation.
What other NuttX documentation is available?
Trademarks.
Some of the words used in this document belong to other people.

Overview

Goals. Nuttx is a real timed embedded operating system (RTOS). Its goals are:

Small Footprint

Usable in all but the tightest micro-controller environments, The focus is on the tiny-to-small, deeply embedded environment.

Rich Feature OS Set

The goal is to provide implementations of most standard POSIX OS interfaces to support a rich, multi-threaded development environment for deeply embedded processors.

NON-GOALS: (1) It is not a goal to provide the rich level of OS features like those provided with Linux. Small footprint is more important than features. Standard compliance is more important than small footprint. (2) There is no MMU-based support for processes. At present, NuttX assumes a flat address space.

Highly Scalable

Fully scalable from tiny (8-bit) to moderate embedded (32-bit). Scalability with rich feature set is accomplished with: Many tiny source files, link from static libraries, highly configurable, use of weak symbols when available.

Standards Compliance

NuttX strives to achieve a high degree of standards compliance. The primary governing standards are POSIX and ANSI standards. Additional standard APIs from Unix and other common RTOS's are adopted for functionality not available under these standards or for functionality that is not appropriate for the deeply-embedded RTOS (such as fork()).

Because of this standards conformance, software developed under other standard OSs (such as Linux) should port easily to NuttX.

Real-Time

Fully pre-emptible, fixed priority and round-robin scheduling.

Totally Open

Non-restrictive BSD license.

Feature Set. Key features of NuttX include:

Standards Compliant Core Task Management

  • Modular, micro-kernel

  • Fully pre-emptible.

  • Naturally scalable.

  • Easily extensible to new processor architectures, SoC architecture, or board architectures. A Porting Guide is in development.

  • FIFO and round-robin scheduling.

  • Realtime, deterministic.

  • POSIX/ANSI-like task controls, named message queues, counting semaphores, clocks/timers, signals, pthreads, environment variables, filesystem.

  • VxWorks-like task management and watchdog timers.

  • BSD socket interface.

  • Extensions to manage pre-emption.

  • Well documented in the NuttX User Guide.
  • File system

  • Tiny in-memory, root pseudo-file-system.

  • Supports character and block drivers.

  • Network and serial driver architecture.

  • Mount-able volumes. Bind mountpoint, filesystem, and block device driver.

  • VFAT filesystem support.
  • C Library

  • Fully integrated into the OS.
  • Networking

  • TCP/IP, UDP, ICMP stacks.

  • Small footprint (based on uIP).

  • BSD compatible socket layer.

  • Networking utilities.
  • NuttX Add-Ons. The following packages are available to extend the basic NuttX feature set:

    Pascal Compiler with NuttX runtime P-Code interpreter add-on

  • The Pascal add-on is available for download from the SourceForge website.
  • Downloads

    The 24th release of NuttX (nuttx-0.3.12) is available for download from the SourceForge website. The change log associated with the release is available here. Unreleased changes after this release are available in CVS. These unreleased changes are listed here.

    The nuttx-0.3.12 release includes some minor bugfixes as well as a few new features. Bugs fixed include:

    New features were also added:

    As usual, any feedback about bugs or suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated.

    Supported Platforms

    Linux User Mode

    A user-mode port of NuttX to the x86 Linux platform is available. The purpose of this port is primarily to support OS feature development.

    STATUS: Does not support interrupts but is otherwise fully functional.

    ARM7TDMI.

    TI TMS320C5471 (also called C5471 or TMS320DA180 or DA180). NuttX operates on the ARM7 of this dual core processor. This port uses the Spectrum Digital evaluation board with a GNU arm-elf toolchain* under Linux or Cygwin.

    STATUS: This port is complete, verified, and included in the initial NuttX release.


    NXP LPC214x. Support is provided for the NXP LPC214x family of processors. In particular, support is provided for the mcu123.com lpc214x evaluation board (LPC2148). This port also used the GNU arm-eld toolchain* under Linux or Cygwin.

    STATUS: Initial coding of this port code complete but has not yet been verified.

    ARM926EJS.

    TI TMS320DM320 (also called DM320). NuttX operates on the ARM9 of this dual core processor. This port uses the Neuros OSD with a GNU arm-elf toolchain* under Linux or Cygwin.

    STATUS: This port is complete and verified.

    8052 Microcontroller

    PJRC 87C52 Development Board. This port uses the PJRC 87C52 development system and the SDCC toolchain under Linux or Cygwin.

    STATUS: This port is complete but not stable with timer interrupts enabled. There seems to be some issue when the stack pointer enters into the indirect IRAM address space during interrupt handling. This architecture has not been built in some time will likely have some compilation problems because of SDCC compiler differences.

    Zilog Z16F

    Zilog z16f Microncontroller. This port use the Zilog z16f2800100zcog development kit and the Zilog ZDS-II Windows command line tools. The development environment is Cygwin under WinXP.

    STATUS: The initial release of support for the z16f was made available in NuttX version 0.3.7.

    Zilog eZ80Acclaim!

    Zilog eZ80Acclaim! Microncontroller. This port uses the ZiLOG ez80f0910200kitg development kit, eZ80F091 part and the Zilog ZDS-II Windows command line tools. The development environment is Cygwin under WinXP.

    STATUS: This is a work in progress. Verified ez80 support will be announced in a future NuttX release.

    Zilog Z8Encore!

    Zilog Z8Encore! Microncontroller. This port uses the either:

    • Zilog z8encore000zco development kit, Z8F6403 part, or
    • Zilog z8f64200100kit development kit, Z8F6423 part

    and the Zilog ZDS-II Windows command line tools. The development environment is Cygwin under WinXP.

    STATUS: This release has been verified only on the ZiLOG ZDS-II Z8Encore! chip simulation as of nuttx-0.3.9.

    Zilog Z80

    Z80 Instruction Set Simulator. This port uses the SDCC toolchain under Linux or Cygwin (verified using version 2.6.0). This port has been verified using only a Z80 instruction simulator. That simulator can be found in the NuttX CVS here.

    STATUS: This port is complete and stable to the extent that it can be tested using an instruction set simulator.

    Other ports

    There are partial ports for the TI TMS320DM270 and for MIPS.

    * A highly modified buildroot is available that may be used to build a NuttX-compatible arm-elf toolchain under Linux or Cygwin.

    Development Environments

    Linux + GNU make + GCC/binutils

    The is the most natural development environment for NuttX. Any version of the GCC/binutils toolchain may be used. There is a highly modified buildroot available for download from the NuttX SourceForge page. This download may be used to build a NuttX-compatible arm-elf toolchain under Linux or Cygwin. Additional support for m68k, m68hc11, and m68hc12 is available in the NuttX CVS.

    Linux + GNU make + SDCC

    Also very usable is the Linux environment using the SDCC compiler. The SDCC compiler provides support for the 8051/2, z80, hc08, and other microcontrollers. The SDCC-based logic is less well exercised and you will likely find some compilation issues if you use parts of NuttX with SDCC that have not been well-tested.

    Cygwin + GNU make + GCC/binutils

    This combination works well too. It works just as well as the native Linux environment except that compilation and build times are a little longer. The custom NuttX buildroot referenced above may be build in the Cygwin environment as well.

    Cygwin + GNU make + SDCC

    I have never tried this combination, but it would probably work just fine.

    Cygwin + GNU make + Windows Native Toolchain

    This is a tougher environment. In this case, the Windows native toolchain is unaware of the the Cygwin sandbox and, instead, operates in the native Windows environment. The primary difficulties with this are:

    • Paths. Full paths for the native toolchain must follow Windows standards. For example, the path /home/my\ name/nuttx/include my have to be converted to something like 'C:\cygwin\home\my name\nuttx\include' to be usable by the toolchain.
    • Fortunately, this conversion is done simply using the cygpath utility.

    • Symbolic Links NuttX depends on symbolic links to install platform-specific directories in the build system. On Linux, true symbolic links are used. On Cygwin, emulated symbolic links are used. Unfortunately, for native Windows applications that operate outside of the Cygwin sandbox, these symbolic links cannot be used.
    • The NuttX make system works around this limitation by copying the platform specific directories in place. These copied directories make work a little more complex, but otherwise work well.

    At present, on the Zilog Z16F port uses a native Windows toolchain (the Zilog ZDS-II toolchain).

    Others Environments?

    The primary environmental dependency of NuttX are (1) GNU make, (2) bash scripting, and (3) Linux utilities (such as sed). If you have other platforms that support GNU make or make utilities that are compatible with GNU make, then it is very likely that NuttX would work in that environment as well (with some porting effort). If GNU make is not supported, then some significant modification of the Make system would be required.

    Memory Footprint

    Licensing

    Release History

    Change Logs for All NuttX Releases
    ChangeLog for Current Releases
    Unreleased Changes
    ChangeLog for Current Release
    Unreleased Changes

    Bugs, Issues, Things-To-Do

    Other Documentation