MontaVista Software is a company that develops embedded Linux system software, development tools, and related software. Its products are made for other corporations developing

embedded system An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

s such as automotive

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

s equipment,

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

s, and other electronic devices and infrastructure. MontaVista is based in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...

and was founded in 1999 by James "Jim" Ready (formerly at

Mentor Graphics Siemens EDA is a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981 as Mentor Graphics, the company was acquired by Siemens in ...

and creator of

Versatile Real-Time Executive Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) is a real-time operating system (RTOS) developed and marketed by the company Mentor Graphics. VRTX is suitable for both traditional board-based embedded systems and system on a chip (SoC) architectures. It ha ...

(VRTX)) and others. On November 10, 2009

Cavium Networks Cavium was a fabless semiconductor company based in San Jose, California, specializing in ARM-based and MIPS-based network, video and security processors and SoCs. The company was co-founded in 2000 by Syed B. Ali and M. Raghib Hussain, who wer ...

announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to purchase MontaVista for $50 million. After Cavium got acquired by Marvell, Montavista operated as an independent entity.

Products

Linux

May 12, 2009, MontaVista announced MontaVista Linux 6 (MVL6) comprising Market Specific Distributions, MontaVista Integration Platform, Software Development Kit, MontaVista Zone Content Server, and support and services. There are several differences between MVL6 and prior MontaVista Linux products. The main ones are: * Market Specific Distributions (MSD)Linux operating systems ( kernel + userland) optimized for each specific semiconductor vendor's hardware. * MontaVista Integration Platformbased on

BitBake BitBake is a make-like build tool with the special focus of distributions and packages for embedded Linux cross compilation, although it is not limited to that. It is inspired by Portage, which is the package management system used by the Gent ...

, analogous to ''

make Make or MAKE may refer to: *Make (magazine), a tech DIY periodical *Make (software), a software build tool *Make, Botswana, in the Kalahari Desert *Make Architects Make Architects is an international architecture practice headquartered in London ...

'', which analyzes a set of directives and then builds a task dependency tree to satisfy a user command. BitBake then executes the defined tasks to completion. * MontaVista Zone Content Serveraccessed from behind a proxy server, or local web mirror for offline operations, to fetch software and updates. Rather than depending on a mix of public

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

Concurrent Versions System Concurrent Versions System (CVS, also known as the Concurrent Versioning System) is a revision control system originally developed by Dick Grune in July 1986. CVS operates as a front end to RCS, an earlier system which operates on single fil ...

(CVS), Git, and

Subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

servers across the Internet, there is one source for each original source

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

and

patch Patch or Patches may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives'' * Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy * "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962 * "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song) ...

. ''MontaVista Linux'' (formerly named ''Hard Hat Linux'') is a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

that has been enhanced to become a full real-time operating system. The work on real-time performance has since continued to a point where MontaVista claims to support hard real-time tasks on embedded Linux as of MontaVista Linux 4.0, with response times as fast as other real-time operating systems. MontaVista sells ''subscriptions'', which consist of software,

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance and use. As a form of knowledge manageme ...

, and

technical support Technical support (abbreviated as tech support) is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical suppor ...

. The software includes a

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

and toolchain aimed at a specific hardware configuration, collectively called a Linux Support Package (LSP), and other integrated tools including the

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...

-based DevRocket

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools a ...

(IDE). The distribution is available in three editions, each aimed at different

market segments In marketing, market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market (economics), market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers (known as ''segments'') based on some typ ...

: ''Professional Edition'', ''Carrier Grade Edition'', and ''Mobilinux''. The MontaVista Linux toolkit includes specific code libraries to easily migrate from

Wind River Systems Wind River Systems, also known as Wind River (trademarked as Wndrvr), is an Alameda, California–based company, subsidiary of Aptiv PLC. The company develops embedded system and cloud software consisting of real-time operating systems software, ...

VxWorks VxWorks is a real-time operating system (or RTOS) developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aptiv. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems requiring real-time, determin ...

and the

pSOS PSOS, ''PSOs'' or pSOS may refer to: * pSOS (real-time operating system) * Provably Secure Operating System * Project Support Open Source * Protective services officers * The Police Service of Scotland Police Scotland ( gd, Poileas Alba), off ...

operating systems.

OpenCGX

Project OpenCGX is an open and free to use embedded

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

distribution from MontaVista Software LLC. OpenCGX is based on MontaVista’s eleventh generation

Carrier Grade Linux Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) is a set of specifications which detail standards of availability, scalability, manageability, and service response characteristics which must be met in order for Linux kernel-based operating system to be considered "ca ...

. Engineers can quickly jumpstart their ARM and

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

development with a full embedded Linux distribution that is easily customizable. OpenCGX in its introduction is based on

Yocto A metric prefix is a unit prefix that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a multiple or submultiple of the unit. All metric prefixes used today are decadic. Each prefix has a unique symbol that is prepended to any unit symbol. The pre ...

2.4 with

Linux Kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

4.14 (or latest LTS kernel) and GNU 7.2 toolchain.

Carrier Grade Express (CGX)

MontaVista Linu
Carrier Grade eXpress (CGX)
is MontaVista's main operating system product that delivers Carrier Grade reliability, security, and serviceability in a highly configurable, flexible package with consistent high quality. CGX features address a large embedded device segment including networking and communications, instrumentation and control, aerospace and defense, SOHO devices, medical electronics and the "Internet of Things (IoT)" market besides general embedded devices. CGX is a Carrier Grade distribution, validated for CGL spec version 5.0.

MVShield

MVShield
is MontaVista's professional maintenance and support program available for Carrier-Grade Linux products and other distributions such as

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...

. One of MontaVista’s most popular support program has bee
MVShield for CentOS
that is best suited for customers who utilize CentOS in markets like network and wireless infrastructure, medical, and military-aerospace
MVShield for Yocto
is MontaVista’s professional services offering to support customer’s open-source Yocto baselines to allow access to industry-leading support and maintenance services without any migration effort to commercial Linux baselines.

Carrier Grade Edition

MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition (CGE) is a commercial-grade Linux development platform for developers working with reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) managed hardware (

Hardware Platform Interface The Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) is an open specification that defines an application programming interface (API) for platform management of computer systems. The API supports tasks including reading temperature or voltage sensors built into ...

(HPI),

Intelligent Platform Management Interface The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a set of computer interface specifications for an autonomous computer subsystem that provides management and monitoring capabilities independently of the host system's CPU, firmware ( BIOS o ...

(IPMI)) or custom hardware, who need long-term support and high availability.

is governed by the

Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. Additi ...

CGL working group.

DevRocket

''MontaVista DevRocket'' is a set of

plug-ins for facilitating application and system development with MontaVista Linux. DevRocket

(IDE) runs on Linux,

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. It uses the Eclipse C++ Development Toolkit (CDT). Starting with DevRocket 5.0, users can add MontaVista's plug-ins into an existing Eclipse installation, or install Eclipse with the plugins already loaded. DevRocket is available in two varieties: a Platform Developer Kit (PDK) and Application Developer Kit (ADK). The Platform Developer Kit includes the ability to communicate with a target (RSE, SSH), create and manage file systems,

debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve in ...

(kgdb), and performance tuning ( memory leak, memory use, system profiling). The application developer kit includes a virtual target for developing applications earlier in the development cycle, one-click edit/compile/debug, and performance tuning.

Services

Custom Hardware Enablement

MontaVista supports the

, ARM, MIPS, and

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

architectures wit
Board Support Packages (BSPs)
and associated kernel, driver, and user land adaptions on SoC or third party reference hardware boards. However, most companies develop and then ship their products based on custom hardware created for their specific requirements. MontaVista can adapt MontaVista Linux products to fit customers' software and hardware environment.

RTOS/Legacy Migration

MontaVista's RTOS/Legacy Migration services
helps developing teams move from legacy products using a home grown or commercial real-time operating system (RTOS) to Embedded Linux.

System Certification

MontaVista Linux is being used in applications within IT and telecom that need to be certified according to

Common Criteria The Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (referred to as Common Criteria or CC) is an international standard (ISO/IEC 15408) for computer security certification. It is currently in version 3.1 revision 5. Common Criteria ...

, up to

EAL4+ The Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL1 through EAL7) of an IT product or system is a numerical grade assigned following the completion of a Common Criteria security evaluation, an international standard in effect since 1999. The increasing assurance ...

level. Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+) is commonly used to secure connectivity in critical environments, such as fire and police departments, or aviation and industry control systems. With the help of EAL4+ these critical environments can, for example, ensure secure and safe phone calls, control communication in-flight and for the assembly line, and achieve secure internet access.

Training

MontaVista customer education
provides education and training in developing intelligent device applications using MontaVista Linux. With the skills gained, development teams are able to reduce application development cycles while minimizing development risk.

Legacy products

Several legacy products are available from MontaVista under long-term support agreements.

Mobilinux

MontaVista

Mobilinux Mobilinux is a discontinued Linux distribution by MontaVista. It was announced on April 25, 2005. History In 2005, PalmSource joined MontaVista to collaborate on Mobilinux. In April 2005, version 4.0 was released. In 2007, version 5.0 was rele ...

is for wireless handsets and other mobile devices such as

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

(GPS) devices, portable medical devices, and wireless

POS terminal The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...

s. Mobilinux's key features include dynamic power management, real-time performance, fast

booting In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via hardware such as a button or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) has no software in its main memory, so som ...

, and small memory footprint.

Professional Edition

MontaVista Professional Edition (Pro) is for general embedded Linux developers who want all the benefits of an open source development platform (open source, Linux, easily accessible software, etc.) and added MontaVista benefits including higher quality (fewer bugs), integration with open source tools for a given hardware architecture, and support. Pro is for intelligent device markets, including networking and communications, instrumentation and control,

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...

and defense,

small office/home office Small office/home office (or single office/home office; sometimes short SOHO) refers to the category of business or cottage industry that involves from 1 to 10 workers. In New Zealand, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) ...

(SOHO) devices, and

medical devices A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...

. Future development of MontaVista Pro has been folded into MontaVista Linux, effectively ending this as a separate edition starting version 5.0.24.

Open source contributions

MontaVista has a history of being a major contributor to the

and the

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

community. From the start, Jim Ready said he wanted to make it "100% pure Linux" under the GPL. The core changes to make MontaVista Linux into a real-time operating system were made by Nigel Gamble and later updated by

Robert Love Robert M. Love (born c. 1981) is an American author, speaker, Google engineer, and open source software developer. Love is best known for his contributions to the Linux kernel, with notable work including the preemptive kernel, process schedule ...

. Robert Love submitted the changes to the Linux kernel in 2001. The Linux 2.6 stable kernel series is the first to include similar features, such as priority-based preemption. As of 2008, MontaVista had contributed 1.2% of the Linux kernel, making it the 9th-largest corporate contributor to the Linux kernel, according to a survey by the Linux Foundation. MontaVista has also spun off independent open source projects based on several of its features, including dynamic power management, high resolution

POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interf ...

timers, the pramfs file system, and the ''openais'' implementation of the

Service Availability Forum The Service Availability Forum (SAF or SA Forum) is a consortium that develops, publishes, educates on and promotes open specifications for carrier-grade and mission-critical systems. Formed in 2001, it promotes development and deployment of com ...

's (SA Forum) Application Interface Specification.

Distribution

Other versions of MontaVista Linux are used in devices made by a number of partners, including

Sony Bravia Bravia (stylized as BRAVIA) is a brand of Sony Visual Products Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation, and used for its television products. Its backronym is "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture". All Sony high-defi ...

TVs,

NEC is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It prov ...

routers, and others, especially in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. A version of MontaVista Linux OS is used in

Dell Latitude The Dell Latitude series is a line of laptop computers manufactured and sold by American company Dell. It is a business-oriented line, aimed at corporate enterprises, healthcare, government, and education markets; unlike the Inspiron series, wh ...

E4200 and E4300 notebooks to provide the

Latitude ON Latitude ON is an instant-on computer system made by Dell. It is a combination of software and hardware developed by Dell and used in some of their Dell Latitude, Latitude laptops. The system is based on a dedicated ARM processor (Texas Instrument ...

feature. Cisco NX-OS is based on HardHat Linux.

Mobile phones

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

became the first company to use Linux on a mobile phone when it released the Motorola A760 to the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

market on February 16, 2003. Motorola chose to use MontaVista Linux in the Motorola A760 and future Linux-based phones, despite the fact that Motorola was a founding member of the competing

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...

OS. Since then, Motorola has increased focus on its Linux platform and publicly stated that the future platform for all its mid- and high-tier mobile phones will be Linux with

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, and other phone manufacturers NEC and Panasonic have developed a common platform based on MontaVista Linux.

References

External links

*
{{Linux-distro Linux companies Embedded Linux Software companies based in California Companies based in Santa Clara, California Software companies established in 1999 Embedded Linux distributions Software companies of the United States 1999 establishments in California 1999 establishments in the United States Companies established in 1999