Timesys has announced a partnership with Swell Software to integrate the latter's ultralight GUI software stack with its LinuxLink embedded Linux development platforms. The LinuxLink subscriptions will provide embedded ARM platforms that have been integrated and tested with Swell's "PEG" graphics development environment, says Timesys.

(Click for larger view of a PEG Pro example)

Sold under the names PEG (portable embedded GUI), PEG+, and LinuxPEG over the years, Swell's Linux-compatible GUI toolkit was released in a PEG Pro version in March 2007. Like the other currently supported versions -- Peg+ and C/PEG -- PEG Pro is a graphical development tool that lets programmers assemble user interfaces by dragging and dropping interface elements. Interfaces can then be tested on Windows or X11, prior to availability of embedded hardware/firmware. Supported X11 environments include Linux, BSD, LynxOS, and Solaris.

PEG Pro adds runtime libraries that can be built using a wide variety of compilers and architectures, for numerous embedded real-time operating systems (RTOSes). PEG Pro GUI runtimes have a minimum code footprint of 150KB, and a typical footprint of 200KB. They need only 8KB of stack, and 32KB of dynamic memory, Swell claimed.

The Timesys pre-integrated LinuxLink platforms will be offered for "popular ARM-based processor platforms" and help "reduce the time and cost to develop sophisticated graphics," says Timesys. The subscriptions appear to support all three current versions of PEG.

Aimed at do-it-yourself (DIY) Linux developers, LinuxLink subscriptions typically include a Linux 2.6x kernel, GNU toolchain, and hundreds of pre-compiled root filesystem (RFS) packages. They also provide access to Timesys TimeStorm development tools, web-based support, and documentation.

Stated Greg Quiggle, VP of Sales and Marketing at Timesys, "Our customers frequently ask for PEG by name when developing high-end, low resource graphics solutions within an embedded Linux environment."

Stated Ken Maxwell, GM of Swell Software, "The 'roll your own' nature of LinuxLink, combined with the prototyping tools and graphics libraries that are part of the PEG toolkit, offer UI designers and application development teams the greatest flexibility and the fastest path for getting products to market."

Availability

Information on final availability of the PEG-enabled versions of LinuxLink ARM subscriptions was not provided. However, a free evaluation version of PEG for Timesys LinuxLink, or for a desktop prototyping environment, should be available on this Swell page.


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