Canonical announces the general availability of Real-Time Ubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS

Most of you know Ubuntu as a desktop operating system; others know it as an outstanding server Linux; or as a popular cloud OS. But Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, is also a serious Internet of Things (IoT) player. And after years of work, IoT release, Ubuntu Core 22.04, Canonical is offering a true real-time operating system.

A real-time operating system is one that's fast enough that it can guarantee a reaction to data within a tight, real-world deadline. Typically, real-time computing delivers results from microseconds (one-millionth of a second) to milliseconds (one-thousandth of a second). Real-time applications that take things down to microsecond latency include stock market high-frequency trading (HFT) applications. The much more common millisecond real-time processing is used in banking and telecom applications, digital ad networks, and self-driving cars. Us? People? We have average reaction times of around 250 milliseconds.

According to Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical's CEO, "The real-time Ubuntu kernel delivers industrial-grade performance and resilience for software-defined manufacturing, monitoring, and operational tech."

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is based on the 5.15 Linux kernel. It integrates the out-of-tree PREEMPT_RT patches for the x86_64 and AArch64 architecture. Together these reduce kernel latencies and guarantee time-predictable task execution.

Canonical sees real-time Ubuntu as being ideal for critical telco infrastructure, by delivering performance, low latency, and security for 5G network transformation needs. Arno Van Huyssteen, Canonical's Telco Field CTO, said, "Canonical's industry-leading Ubuntu Pro with Real Time Kernel provides significant value to our Service Provider and Enterprise customers across multiple industries."

In addition, to Canonical promises, real-time Ubuntu supports the future of robotics automation and, eventually, autonomous vehicles. Yes, eventually your car may be running Ubuntu Linux.

Canonical will be able to do this thanks to providing state-of-the-art Over-The-Air (OTA) updates and long-term security maintenance. The real-time kernel is available across Ubuntu OS variants and is available via Ubuntu Pro or Ubuntu Core, both with long-term support and maintenance guarantees.

This new Ubuntu won't be available just for IoT devices. You'll also be able to use in the cloud. “Accessing an industry-leading Linux OS on AWS, with the power of AWS Graviton processors, will help further hardware parity in automotive development”, said Stefano Marzani, Amazon Web Servies (AWS)'s Worldwide Technical Lead of Software-Defined Vehicles. “By working with Canonical, and providing access to real-time Ubuntu in the cloud, AWS is helping to empower developers to start implementing systems requiring deterministic behavior- like automotive and industrial workloads - ahead of hardware availability and in parallel with hardware provisioning.”

Canonical is also, of course, already partnering with silicon vendors, board manufacturers, and Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) to shorten businesses' time-to-market and bring end-to-end security and reliability to the most demanding workloads. Businesses and developers can now drive the envelope of security and determinism in mission-critical devices with real-time Ubuntu.

For more information, contact Canonical for custom board enablement, production distribution, long-term support, or security maintenance.

Other noteworthy Linux and open-source stories:

• SAP and Red Hat Deepen Partnership to Power SAP Software Workloads with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

• How AWS uses eBPF to identify security risks

• Spotted in the wild: Chimera – a Linux that isn't GNU/Linux