wtf is "QNX" ???

[KarsinTheHutt]

I stumbled upon some unix like OS called QNX that claims to be a "real time" OS with highly scalable capabilities.

I was tempted to download and install - but I can't afford to mess up my PC right now. Does anyone know what this is and if its any good?

 

[Plantanthera]

See link: QNX FAQ

 

[thornc]

Yes, QNX is a "Real-Time OS" its kernel has different schedulling routines to handle this task.
QNX is not a Linux variant but a Unix one...it has been evolving but its harddly what you can
call a desktop OS.

Its main use is in tasks where the real-time feature is important like data acquisition and
control....

 

[ArkAoss]

i hear qnx is good, very light weight, but powerfull.

 

[Noriaki]

Don't put it on your PC.

Unless you have a specific reason for wanting a real-time system then you don't want QNX it's not a good general purpose OS. It's good for what it does but it's one of those things if you don't know what it is, you probably don't want it. Not trying to be an elitist or anything...it's just not very good for general use or fidgeting.

 

[superbaby]

Ahhh... a real-time OS.
Definitely not meant to be put on a desktop.

 

[ajskydiver]

You can safely use QNX's OS all you want...it loads from one bootable 1.44mb floppy.

It's pretty impressive and neat...but other than that, there was nothing I could do on it other than play with it.

 

[MGMorden]

You're referring to the floppy demo. That's not QNX RTP (though it's very neat). RTP is a full Unix distro with all the fixin's. It doesn't use X11 for it's native apps (so graphics are fairly quick), but has X11 support for programs that need it (so you can still telnet and bring up an Xterm from your Linux box 🙂, you can compile though x11 programs). Its not bad, but has a lack of good app support. If you don't want to mess up your computer right now then don't bother with it. On the other hand if you are experimental (like me) and want to try out everything there is out there then by all means give it a shot. I think you'd be pleasantly suprised by it's functionality, but the lack of app support does seriously limit it's usability.