The Embedded Open Source Summit 2023 focused on the development of the Linux Foundation’s real-time operating system. In the world of embedded systems, Linux is well-established, but real-time operating systems for small systems are generally dominated by cloud providers like Amazon FreeRTOS and Microsoft Azure RTOS. Linux relies on contributions from the community to connect with these systems.
Prominent users of Zephyr, the real-time operating system, include Google and Meta. Google uses Zephyr in the embedded controller of Chromebooks, while Meta optimizes the management engine of its in-house chips to work with Zephyr.
Anas Nashif, one of the main contributors to Zephyr, emphasized the importance of providing value-added components in addition to board support packages. The community responded by developing new components, such as the open-source update management system Mender. Mender can now manage microcontroller firmware thanks to the open-source component mender-mcu-client. The Zephyr terminal will also be accessible via Mender in the future.
To improve code quality, Zephyr offers an event bus called Zbus that enables the decoupling of embedded software. Meta is currently exploring the use of Thrift under Zephyr for improved hardware emulation in embedded systems.
Integrated development environments (IDEs) are widely used in the embedded space. While Zephyr currently lacks a default configuration for managing build control files, the community recommended some plugins for Visual Studio Code at the summit. Hardware manufacturers are also working on optimizing their IDEs to work seamlessly with Zephyr.
Hardware manufacturers like Espressif and STMicroelectronics showcased their progress in porting Zephyr to their systems at the summit. The Zephyr team now consists of four people and work is ongoing on Zephyr for ESP32 cores.
Overall, the Embedded Open Source Summit 2023 highlighted the growth and development of the Linux Foundation’s real-time operating system, Zephyr, and the importance of collaboration and community contributions in this space.
