Sun porting OpenSolaris to ARM chips

Sun Microsystems has started porting its OpenSolaris operating system to ARM processor cores, targeting mobile, handheld and embedded applications, on the heels of making the OS available on Sparc processors targeting mainframes and servers.

The OpenSolaris ARM port is based on the initial 2008.05 Project Indiana release of the operating system, which is now two releases behind the latest OpenSolaris version 2009.06 announced earlier this month.

The new ARM port, initially and specifically targeted for NEC's NaviEngine 1, a multicore ARM11-based SoC and a reference board designed primarily for car computers and portable navigation devices as outlined in the release notes, marks the realization of an interested earlier expressed by Sun.

According to the OpenSolaris ARM project page, the OpenSolaris Operating System has many features well suited for embedded systems. The kernel is fully pre-emptable and multithreaded, it provides real-time capabilities, and the modular architecture is highly configurable.