Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew Johnson <[email protected]> · Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:44:23 -0500

Hi Dimitris,

On Monday 17 August 2009 17:10:57 Dimitrios Tsifakis wrote:
>
> I noticed that most similar facilities are using vxWorks 5.5, but I
> believe there is another stream, 6.7. Is there any reason to stick to
> 5.5 or is it irrelevant for the typical EPICS application?

No, it shouldn't matter for EPICS users, and 6.x is better because it provides 
support for newer SBCs.  Many sites that are still on 5.x (and that includes 
the APS) are there because their Wind River license doesn't cover upgrading 
to 6.x.  In our case we've hit some legal issues with upgrading our license 
(which we're working on), but in other cases the site might not be on annual 
maintenance (because it's expensive) and the version they have is legal and 
still works.

Wind River's newer licenses are more flexible in terms of Host OS and Target 
architecture, but they do expire if you stop paying their annual fee, meaning 
that you're no longer allowed to recompile any vxWorks code at all.  The 
older perpetual licenses that some sites have don't expire like that, but 
they cost more to buy and you're usually stuck with a particular combination 
of Host and target.

I believe the newer licenses give you the right to use older versions, but the 
only reason to do that would be for backwards compatibility or older hardware 
— vxWorks 6.x isn't available for the Motorola 680x0 CPUs that older projects 
like the APS still use.

HTH,

- Andrew
-- 
The best FOSS code is written to be read by other humans -- Harold Welte

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System