μClinux

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
μClinux
Embedded Linux
Working stateCurrent
Source modelOpen source
PlatformsSee below
Kernel typeLinux kernel-fork
UserlanduClinux-dist, uClibc, BusyBox
Official websiteuclinux.org at the Wayback Machine (archived 2018-11-13)
uClibc is a wrapper around the system calls of the Linux kernel and/or μClinux.

μClinux is a variation of the

end-of-life
in mainline).

The letters "μC" are for "microcontroller": the name is pronounced "you-see-Linux", rather than pronouncing the letter mu as in Greek.[3]

History

μClinux was originally created by D. Jeff Dionne and Kenneth Albanowski in 1998. Initially, they targeted the

ARM
processor support was added later.

Although originally targeting 2.0 series Linux kernels, it now has ports based on Linux 2.4 and Linux 2.6. The Linux 2.4 ports were forward ported from the 2.0.36 Linux kernel by Michael Leslie and Evan Stawnyczy during their work at Rt-Control. There were never any μClinux extensions applied to the 2.2 series kernels.

Since version 2.5.46 of the Linux kernel, the major parts of μClinux have been integrated with the mainline kernel for a number of processor architectures.[4]

Greg Ungerer (who originally ported μClinux to the Motorola ColdFire family of processors) continued to maintain and actively push core μClinux support into the 2.6 series Linux kernels. In this regard, μClinux is essentially no longer a separate fork of Linux.

μClinux had support for many architectures, and forms the basis of many products, like

VoIP phone or gateways, scanners
, and card readers.

Support for several of the original target architectures was dropped in 2018.

MN10300, Imagination META (Metag), and Tilera TILE.[6]

Hardware projects

The leanXCam was an open-source programmable smart camera used for industrial applications in the field of machine vision that ran under μClinux; the camera won an award at the 2008 VISION tradeshow.[7] As of 2015, the project was discontinued.[8]

Supported architectures

The current list includes:

No longer supported

Before Linux 4.17 the following architectures were also supported:[14]

References

  1. ^ D. Jeff Dionne; Michael Durrant. "uClinux Description". Archived from the original on 2007-12-25. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
  2. ^ Greg Ungerer. "uClinux mainline Announcement". Archived from the original on 2007-10-31. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
  3. ^ "μClinux". Archived from the original on October 4, 2006. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  4. ^ Miles Gillham "uClinux and Linux set to merge", Linux.com, November 19, 2002.
  5. ^ Linus Torvalds "Linux 4.17-rc1", LKML.ORG, 15 April 2018.
  6. ^ Jonathan Corbet "Shedding old architectures and compilers in the kernel", LWN.net, February 26, 2018.
  7. ProQuest 224134687
    . Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  8. ^ "home". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  9. ^ "Linux for ARM® Processors www.arm.com Summer/Winter 2013 Robert Boys System Design Division, ARM" (PDF). 2013-09-10. Retrieved 2014-07-17. What about Cortex-M and Cortex-R ? /../ These can run a modified version of Linux called uClinux.
  10. ^ "Linux 2.6.27 kernel released 9 October 2008". Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  11. ^ "remove the v850 port".
  12. ^ "Linux 5.19 was released on Sunday, 31 Jul 2022". Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  13. ^ "remove the h8300 architecture".
  14. ^ "[GIT PULL] arch: remove obsolete architecture ports".

External links