LINDON, Utah -- March 19, 2001 -- Today, Opersys, Inc. and Lineo, Inc. announced the availability of the Linux Trace Toolkit (LTT) 0.9.4. LTT 0.9.4 is the first complete version of LTT to support the PowerPC processor family running Linux and the Real-Time Applications Interface (RTAI) in addition to the currently supported x86 processor family.
Although LTT for PowerPC has been available for standard Linux user-space tasks for many months, it has only now been modified to provide the capability to trace real-time Linux tasks running in the kernel memory space.
"This LTT port to the PowerPC platform integrates intelligently with the rest of the LTT code, providing a well structured, powerful and flexible set of tools for the embedded and real-time developer," said Karim Yaghmour, chief architect of LTT and founder of Opersys, Inc. "PowerPC support for both Linux and RTAI is significant as PPC is the platform of choice for many embedded developers."
The LTT 0.9.4 also includes numerous bug fixes and facilities that allow events to be created dynamically. One facility, for instance, is used by IBM's DProbes project to log probe information within the traces collected by LTT.
Like the expensive time-tracing solutions available for many proprietary
embedded RTOS solutions, LTT provides developers with all of the
information necessary to reconstruct a system's behavior over a certain
period of time. Using LTT, one can graphically view the precise dynamics of
a system, answering such questions as:
· Who actually has access to the hardware during a specific time slice?
· What happens to an application when it receives data?
· Where are the I/O latencies in a given application?
· When is a specific application actually reading from disk?
· Why do certain synchronization problems occur?
LTT provides information through three primary graphical and text information displays, the event graph, the process analysis thumbnail and the raw list of events. These displays map the system's lowest level processes (such as scheduling decisions, process switches and various management tasks) to each high-level application -- all plotted against the time axis.
Availability LTT is an open source project that is freely distributable under the GNU General Public License. Additional information and a download for LTT are available on the Opersys LTT project page. Work on the LTT has been performed by Karim Yaghmour, the chief architect of LTT and founder of Opersys, Inc., with significant improvements performed under funding by Lineo, Inc.
Lineo Embedix SDK and Embedix RealTime toolkits include the Linux Trace Toolkit, as well as both step & trace and run-time debuggers, that combine to provide powerful system analysis and debug capabilities.
About Opersys, Inc. Opersys, Inc. was founded in 1999. Its primary goal is to provide expertise in the often obscure world of operating systems. This expertise strongly encourages the usage of solutions based on the Linux kernel and it's real-time derivatives. Opersys is based in Montreal, Canada. Our staff is composed of open-source enthusiasts who have a keen sense of designing, coding and teaching. Contact Opersys at http://www.opersys.com, or via e-mail at info@opersys.com.
About Lineo, Inc.
Lineo, Inc. provides embedded systems, real time and high availability
solutions that include software, hardware reference designs and
professional services. Lineo's solutions allow OEMs to create devices and
systems that interact with the Internet while helping OEMs to reduce system
requirements, per-unit costs and time-to-market. The company's key product
lines include: Embedix (embedded Linux system software), uClinux
(embedded Linux for MMU-less processors), SecureEdge? (Linux-based Internet
appliances for secure networking), RTXC (general purpose and DSP real-time
operating system), BeaconSuite (x86 development toolkit) and Availix
(mission-critical high availability Linux cluster solutions). Contact
Lineo at http://www.lineo.com, via e-mail to info@lineo.com or by calling
(801) 426-5001.
Lineo is a trademark of Lineo, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark owned by Linus Torvalds. All other products, services, companies and publications are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
