Is Linux useful for an Electrical Engineer?

[massprog]

I'm undergraduate student of EE(control)
I still haven't study control course
and I love programming and computers
what is it's applications and where can I use of linux EE and  particular in  control?
I'm be appreciate for your answers

[Artlav]

Linux is an OS - a set of software that takes care of peripherals, filesystems, processes, memory and so on. It can work on rather small devices - down to 4Mb of RAM or so. Usually it is used where you need to have more complex processing than just a regulator or two.

I.e. a quadrocopter would be immediately controlled by a microcontroller that reads the sensors, computes DCT or something and gives commands to the motors. A real-time control system. But above that uC you can put an ARM CPU with Linux on it, that would read data from cameras, and give the uC commands on the level of "go left 3 meters", rather than talk to motors directly, and report something over WiFi to the internet.
Linux takes care of USB, WIFI, TCP/IP, files and so on, leaving you free to code just the control program working on the level of "give me image from camera 1" and "send xyz to http://192.168.8.54:455", instead of having to implemet each protocol and interface yourself.

Something like that. Sorry if it was too detailed.

[rsjsouza]

For a system that requires tight control such as used for motors and other actuators, in general microcontrollers or discrete circuits are closer to them while Linux plays the role of the "manager" of the entire system. One of the reasons is that Linux was originally designed to execute many processes without support to be ruled by strict real-time constraints. That changes a bit with RT Linux, which has better support for this.

All in all, Linux is very useful in embedded computing and electronics.

[Luminax]

The beauty is of course, unlike some propietary OS, you have full control over what you want to use and what you don't.
The super steep learning curve is a huge setback for some people (me included) but once you get used to it you'd be amazed at what can be accomplished with just the basic tiny kernel and some basic toolchain installed.

[massprog]

thank you for your good answers
As I said I love programming
and I know it
is It useful to develop my programming skills?
and what language is necessary for me?
thank you dears

[tszaboo]

Yes. Not for desktop, but for embedded.

[trophosphere]

The only time when I had to use Linux was during my time at a university for a VLSI design class. I was using Cadence Virtuso to build a custom 8-bit micro-controller. I think we bothered the graduate student more on how to do something specific in Linux than about the project itself though designing the PLL was a bit of a challenge. Since then, I never had to use Linux.

[daybyter]

Hmmmh...there are some chances, that you still use Linux...

In your phone, your satellite receiver, your dvd player, your car etc etc

[donmr]

Beware, Linux can not run many EDA software, especially those commercial, proprietary ones.

That depends on what EDA software you are talking about.  I've done IC design for 40 years and rarely used Windows EDA tools.  It has been Unix/Linux since they became widely available over 20 years ago. 

Whether its simulating logic, creating test data, or producing documentation and reports, I use Linux every day.  (I do use MS-Windows for email because the IT drones at work think IMAP will "break the network".)

[ebclr]

Linux is mandatory, not only useful

A lot of devices, uses linux inside, scopes, spectrum analyzer, base stations, military, if you don't know Linux you are not a electrical engenieer

[Karel]

Programming is much easier than with windows, including GUI things.
In our company, all development and design is done on Linux systems. Occasionally, very occasionally, we use windows 7 in Virtualbox.
Professional EDA like Zuken, Eagle and Cadence run natively on Linux.

[ebclr]

The power of Linux isn't on the desktop, is on the embedded and server applications, for desktop windows still the king

[Karel]

During my career I have been using different platforms and different EDA.
I can tell you this, Eagle is definitely not a hobbyist tool. At least in our company, it let us do things more quickly and with less
errors than, for example, that bloated, buggy and overpriced altium designer...
It's true that Eagle lacks some features. That's why it's cheaper and more affordable.
Doesn't mean it's less professional. People who think that Eagle isn't a professional
tool, haven't been used it long enough or haven't learned the tool properly.
And yes, we do design professional  multilayer boards with highspeed USB/ethernet/LVDS/etc.
I'm not going to tell you why we moved away from windows. Use Google and you'll find lots of reasons not to use windows...

[ebclr]

Have you used Altium for doing some projects from beginning to end, if you did you will never come back to eagle

 Eagle it's not on same level it's useful but it's a toy a little better than Proteus that is even easier to work than eagle but still a toy


Kicad is a better option than eagle that is also expensive

[george graves]

I'm undergraduate student of EE(control)
what is it's applications and where can I use of linux EE and  particular in  control?

The power of Linux isn't on the desktop, is on the embedded and server applications, for desktop windows still the king

In other words....you have a dozen stepping stones between you an a *unix level OS that is needed.

As a student, you have enough issues to deal with then trying to run Linux even as an OS.  Too fussy IMHO.  Just get a Thinkpad or Mac book and call it a day

[dr.diesel]

The OP doesn't exactly specify, but mentions control?  That is kinda vague, like programming PLCs or other industrial equipment as an end user, or actual programming of the underlying OS the PLC runs on?

[Kalvin]

For the automated measurement and control stuff Linux is a quite useful environment as a large number of different software packages and programming languages are available for Linux. Some people may also appreciate the fact that Linux is available from the smallest gadgets to largest computer systems, so learning Linux will not be wasted time and effort, even if you decided to stay in the dark side looking at the world through opaque Windows.

[Kalvin]

If you ever need a simple gadgets performing automated test and measurement with logging and/or connectivity, Linux is the way to go. You can buy a device running Linux for less than $10. Add some ADC, DAC, GPIO, SD-card for the OS, and you are good to go. Want a Wifi connection or Ethernet? Yes, very easy. Want to access and/or debug the devices remotely around the world? Almost trivial. Needs to run on a battery? Just hook a USB power bank or similar. Want a responsive system? Linux is the way as you can remove everything which is not necessary, you are the boss. Need to tweak a driver or need a new driver altogether? Try to do that in Windows. Need tens of devices but the license payments will kill the idea? Choose Linux.

In addition to Linux, there are other Unix variants, like BSD which may be suitable in some situations.

Although Linux has many good qualities, it may not be the ultimate solution. Unfortunately some tools require Windows environment, but fortunately a Virtualbox or VMWare are quite useful.

I would recommend testing different Linux distros using Virtualbox or VMWare, so you can choose your favourite. Running the distro inside a virtual machine is very flexible as you can have even multiple Linux distros running at the same time, but your main operating system will not be affected in any way.

[Kalvin]

That sounds like to be the territory of FreeRTOS or if you are rich, VxWorks. If I want to control a BLDC at 10kHz ISR rate, there is no way Linux can work without blowing up every transistors.

Hopefully you are not suggesting that Windows would be the right tool for the job either. Anyway, controlling a motor in real-time needs a dedicated processor for that task, and the host-computer - whether Windows or Linux - will communicate the processor over some communication bus or media.

[John Coloccia]

I'm undergraduate student of EE(control)
I still haven't study control course
and I love programming and computers
what is it's applications and where can I use of linux EE and  particular in  control?
I'm be appreciate for your answers

Your question is a little bit vague. If I just go from the title, Linux is useful just like anything else is useful. If it's selected for the right application, then it's useful. If it's a bad fit, then it's not useful.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to be familiar with Linux, just as you should be familiar with Windows, and it's also not a bad idea to be familiar with basic windows/linux programming, but most EEs aren't going to be writing this kind of software anymore than most software engineers would be designing boards. There are always exceptions but they're just that...exceptions.

[Karel]

Have you used Altium for doing some projects from beginning to end, if you did you will never come back to eagle

 Eagle it's not on same level it's useful but it's a toy a little better than Proteus that is even easier to work than eagle but still a toy


Kicad is a better option than eagle that is also expensive

In the past I have used Multisim and Ultiboard for a couple of years. It was terrible. I don't know if it has improved in the mean time.
I have used altium designer for exactly a year. I have done several projects with it. One of my (ex) colleagues was very proficient with it.
Although it wasn't too bad, we experienced several issues with it. It was slow, in case of internet connection faillure, we got
annoying popup messages about the license. Sometimes we couldn't use it because it thought we had too many seats in use.
Many times we had to call support. At least ones a day I had to restart because of instabilities. Probably because altium is still
stuck in the 90's using an antique language & compiler. It forces you to use windows. Difficult to use git, "git diff" is useless. Etc, etc.
Then I started to use Zukens' Cadstar. I didn't like it either. No real integration between schematic capture and board layout.
No realtime forward backward annotation. Insufficient documentation, no forum or cummunity.
Then I started to use Eagle. It's not perfect either but after a learning curve, I was able to do the job faster and more efficient.
It doesn't use the stupid "select an object, then select a tool" method. Eagle uses the much more efficient approach of
"select a tool, then select an object" method. Eagle saves the data in an open, human readible format that works nicely with git.
And it doesn't force you to use windows. Startup time of Eagle and memory usage is superior.
Eagle can work nicely together with other software or, if you wish, you can write your own extensions and customize it.

[Karel]

I'm not sure about Eagle, but in Altium you can bypass many design rules so that I don't have to waste my time to set rules properly. This makes designing relatively simple and dirty boards much quicker.

I have seen engineers strugling with altium exactly because of this. Results were layouts that weren't updated after the schematics
were modified or missing connections to groundplanes, etc.
At first it looks like altium is "userfriendly". Then you discover that your prototype isn't working as expected...
Oh, did I mention that stupid "compile" button?

[Kalvin]

I'm not sure about Eagle, but in Altium you can bypass many design rules so that I don't have to waste my time to set rules properly. This makes designing relatively simple and dirty boards much quicker.

This is equivalent to rock-climbing with the safety gear but not using it because you want to climb faster. Some people might call this just plain stupid thing to do**

Good engineering and rock-climbing require discipline.

** Done that (ignoring the ERC rules), too. 

[Artlav]

And yes, we do design professional  multilayer boards with highspeed USB/ethernet/LVDS/etc.

Hm, how would you go about breaking out a 484 ball BGA on a 6 layer board with Eagle, without hours of drudgery?
I found scripts online, but none of them do much of use.

[Artlav]

Eagle saves the data in an open, human readible format that works nicely with git.

Oh, and how usable is Git there?
Can you view the diff graphically somehow, or is it only for rollbacks?