WinXP

Only if there is no removable media and no network connection.

What applications do you need to run?

If you just need it to run a web browser, you'd be better off with a linux kernel, featherweight window manager, and minimal web client.

If you want to buy a complete system Montavista specialise in embedded Linux,

I've seen far too many airport and railway displays with blue screens of death on them and far too many ATMs and ticket kiosks with modal error dialog boxes on them to ever think Windows is a good idea in an embedded situation.

Not to mention the Windows based self service checkouts at my local 24 hour Tesco which reboot themselves at 1am every day.

-p

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"Unix is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are."
 - Anonymous
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If you are using standard off the shelf PC hardware (probably the cheapest choice in this case), you are better of with a more mainstream distribution. Our experience is that Montavista is rather slow with supporting new PC hardware. The PC platform and the typical applications on run on the PC platform does not appear to be the main focus of Montavista.

Yeah, also Linux is not that a great choice in the reliability department, have seen more kernel panics than I care to remember. On the upside not many exploits will work on a Linux based solution.

It depends on the nature of your device, but you will never be absolutely safe, certainly not with Windows XP, even if you do update regularly. But you could improve safety a lot when let your application run under a user account with minimum privileges, optionally in a sandbox (e.g.

You could also use a less popular OS to reduce the chance you device gets affected by some kind of exploit.

Name some. I've found that the only time I get a kernel panic is when I try to overclock my hardware. I've been using linux for 9 years haven't had a kernel panic outside a hardware issue yet. Last bunch of kernel panics I had was in '03 with a motherboard that had the dreaded defective caps. No OS could survive such hardware.

And if you after all use some kind of network connections, use only client (active) mode and use a hardware firewall with only those ports open that are used by the application connect requests. Use numeric IP addresses in the connect requests.

Paul

Well, there's a design flaw already. Surely they need to reboot a random times of the day to even out the network load.

Peter

Interesting answers so far. I have used both XP Embedded and Linux in simiar situations. Regardless of what anyone here claims to be better, both need to be patched for vunerablilities if they are to be network attached. Leaving an unpatched OS is plain stupid and a security risk.

In saying that, a lot of functionality can be switched off in EMbedded XP meaning there is a lot less requirement for patching. Same goes for linux.

The security aspect is relevant to both linux and windows.

What a generally ignorant thing to say. These are examples of bad drivers in the first instance, bad application code in the second instance, and preemptive coverup of likely leaky RAD systems in the third instance. None of these are problems of the OS. Are you claiming that Linux is somehow immune to development errors?

My personal experience comes from Windows 2003 Servers as batch build boxes on HP hardware using HP recommended versions of drivers with no thirdparty drivers or system level software installed.

We have found that we have to preemptively reboot them once a week otherwise the incidence of "weird things" happening increases to levels which impact on our build success rates. On the other hand most of our Linux boxes have been up for hundreds of days without problems.

Any embedded system need the ability to monitor itself and restart. Generally you need hardware and software watchdogs, defensive coding and the ability for the system to do something sensible in the case of catastrophic error.

Regrettably I see far more Windows based embedded system which have "bad drivers" "bad application code" and "leaky RAD systems" than embedded systems based on other OSes.

For example most theatrical lighting desks are embedded computers. People don't like them to fail mid show, audiences tend to get upset. Strand, which was the market leader for many used a protected mode environment using DOS as a bootloader. Other companies tend to use things like VxWorks or QNX, or how brewed RTOSes. There is approximately one XP Embedded based desk in the market and very few people trust it as too many people have had it crash or weirdly freeze etc.

-p

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"Unix is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are."
 - Anonymous
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You can also boot your device from read-only media, and have a clockwork timer that does this every morning at 1am. Or if you use fast booting tricks, perhaps even after every usage.

But of course that means you can't do remote updates. Or you can make something that can be written to, but only by a tricky sequence of events to unlock the hardware (programmable logic gate keeper) that's done by code that's only downloaded to the device during an update. This is attackable by someone who spies on and update cycle, but not casually by running generic scripts using known O/S vulnerabilities.

In the search for truth, the simpler answer usually prevails. I would suspect application error and inadequate testing more readily than I would accept excuses that the platform is fundamentally flawed. I've seen the reverse situation as well. My Linux-based Toshiba DVD player reboots occasionally during playback. Should I conclude that this reflects a limitation of embedded Linux?

In my 'limited experience' ALL platforms have problems.

However I tend to find that MS Windows platform and applications have what is sometimes classed as 'consumer grade' (that is being unkind to consumer grade), applications and drivers.

Boss sees he can get Windows 'programmers' ten a penny, so chooses Windows and gets more sloppy practices and so called 'professionals' who are normally "more worried about the paint job, than the engine". Internal politics drive the product development not the spec (if there ever was one). Then the products get sold into places where the customer worries about the brand name and contract and rarely checks the specs or test the items. Then the items become the 'inhouse standard'.

Seems a lot of equipment is going this way to drive down costs at the front end not the back end (selling to consumer). too many companies always trying to be first with the next great thing that nobody actually NEEDS!

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Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
    PC Services
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I do not know about Vista, but any other member of the Windows NT family can run for months or even a year or two without a reboot, provided that you are careful what hardware and software you are using.

A very large application package has been used on various platforms (including Windows NT family) for more than a decade. On WinNT the applications run in several console windows, the keyboard, mouse and display are used only for maintenance and diagnostics and usually a KVM switch is used to maintain multiple systems. Any loadable storage devices (floppy/USB) are disabled and the system is running stand-alone or with very strict firewall protection to the next well protected area. The applications do not in general use malloc/free so there are no dynamic memory fragmentation issues. New software and hardware are typically tested for months before being released.

So it is definitively possible to run WinNT systems without reboot for a very long time if you can accept such limitations.

Paul

Kernel panics? What's that? I've got Linux running on a variety of hardware, embedded to PC's and that isn't something I see.

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// This is my opinion.

A kernel panic is the Linux equivalent of the blue screen of death of windows

Good for you. However I have seen quite a few for example when stressing the USB bus (this one eventually got solved), certain video cards and with the S3 mode.

When I moved my linux system onto a new motherboard, it started to boot OK - then I saw my first kernel panic.

I was very disappointed with the supposedly "reliable" linux - until I noticed I had left the heatsink off the CPU and it was starting to smoke :)

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John Devereux