March 2024
After four months of unemployment and stress, I finally started a new job today. Hooray!
The job is very interesting: Researching the options for replacing a no-longer-supported Windows CE Operating System on a medical device with a Real-Time version of Linux Ubuntu.
Having been forewarned by my recruiter as to the nature of the work, I actually started looking into it last week and figured out that I will need to learn everything about the following:
Yocto - which creates software packages for installing the Linux Operating System
Qt - the software that creates and manages the Graphical User Interface (GUI) in Linux
I installed Yocto on my 'fast' laptop and tried using it to generate Linux builds for my Raspberry Pi. Then used the Raspberry Pi to go through some device driver tutorials. That was fun!
On Friday, FedEx was supposed to deliver the client hardware but they claimed that they couldn't find the house. By the time I was notified about it, the hardware had been take back to their local office and it was too late to go get it. So I had to run over there on Saturday and pick it up.
There are two boxes, one containing my 'company' laptop and another containing the prototype hardware I'm supposed to be using. I didn't try setting it up til today because I don't have all the information to set up the network or even log in to the laptop yet. And I'm certainly not going to try turning on the prototype hardware until I get some instructions first! I don't want to start out by frying the hardware.
We had our "Kick-Off" meeting today and they went over the planned schedule and expectations. I don't know how they expect to get this done in only 3 months; I'm supposed to get the following done:
- Examine the existing Windows CE-based software and understand how it works.
- Build the old software using Visual Studio and load it on the prototype hardware
- Build a basic Ubuntu system (using Yocto) which will run on the prototype hardware.
- Convert the Ubuntu system from 'standard' Linux to Real-Time Linux.
- Rework all the device drivers supporting the hardware on the board to function under Real-Time Linux.
- Generate a report describing in detail the entire process.
Easy-peasy! (If I had about a year)
For now I'm just going to focus on loading the Yocto software and seeing if I can run through the simple tutorials or something to make sure I know what I'm doing.
Fun!
2 comments:
Reading this after the job was cancelled, and thinking to myself, "Isn't it typical that the person tasked with an impossible job is the one beating himself up when he can't do the impossible?"
Miracle Max you're not. And this job sounded more than "mostly dead" from the get-go.
It actually sounds like somebody was hoping there would be a quick, cheap and easy alternative to a complete redesign of their outdated product, and they wanted somebody to blame if it didn't turn out to be possible.
You are correct. They wanted a quick, cheap and easy alternative. What they didn't understand was that the hardware they were using was at least a decade out-of-date and the software they were hoping to use had moved on. It would've been far easier in the long run to just do the redesign in the first place. Oh, well, I'm sure the sw guy I worked with (who was very nice) is having a wonderful time learning all about Linux after being a Windows guy his whole career. Job security!
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