Embedded operating system
Encyclopedia
An embedded operating system is an operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 for embedded computer systems
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...

. These operating systems are designed to be compact, efficient, and reliable, forsaking many functions that non-embedded computer operating systems provide, and which may not be used by the specialized applications they run. They are frequently also real-time operating system
Real-time operating system
A real-time operating system is an operating system intended to serve real-time application requests.A key characteristic of a RTOS is the level of its consistency concerning the amount of time it takes to accept and complete an application's task; the variability is jitter...

s, and the term RTOS is often used as a synonym for embedded operating system.

An important difference between most embedded operating systems and desktop operating systems is that the application, including the operating system, is usually statically linked together into a single executable image. Unlike a desktop operating system, the embedded operating system does not load and execute applications. This means that the system is only able to run a single application.

See also

  • List of Embedded operating systems
  • Principle of least privilege
    Principle of least privilege
    In information security, computer science, and other fields, the principle of least privilege, also known as the principle of minimal privilege or just least privilege, requires that in a particular abstraction layer of a computing environment, every module must be able to access only the...

    (computer security)

These operating systems are specially designed to deal with limited processing power,size and memory constrains.
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