# RT-Thread #

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RT-Thread is an open source real-time operating system for embedded devices from China. RT-Thread RTOS is a scalable real-time operating system: a tiny kernel for ARM Cortex-M0, Cortex-M3/4, or a full feature system in ARM Cortex-A8, ARM Cortex-A9 DualCore etc. 

## Overview ##

RT-Thread RTOS like a traditional real-time operating system. The kernel has real-time multi-task scheduling, semaphore, mutex, mail box, message queue etc. However, it has two different things:

* Device Driver;
* Component. 

The device driver is more like a driver framework, UART, SPI, USB device/host, EMAC, MTD NAND etc. The developer can easyly add low level driver and board configuration, then he/she can use lots of features. 

The Component is a software concept upon RT-Thread kernel, for example a shell (finsh shell), virtual file system (FAT, YAFFS, UFFS, ROM/RAM file system etc), TCP/IP protocol stack (lwIP), POSIX interface etc. One component must be a directory under RT-Thread/Components and one component can be descripted by a SConscript file (then be compiled and linked into the system).

## Board Support Package ##

RT-Thread RTOS can support many architectures:

* ARM Cortex-M0
* ARM Cortex-M3/M4
* ARM Cortex-R4
* ARM Cortex-A8/A9
* ARM920T/ARM926 etc
* MIPS 
* x86
* PowerPC

## License ##

RT-Thread RTOS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation. RT-Thread RTOS is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with RT-Thread; see file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

As a special exception, including RT-Thread RTOS header files in a file, instantiating RT-Thread RTOS generics or templates, or linking other files with RT-Thread RTOS objects to produce an executable application, does not by itself cause the resulting executable application to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by the GNU Public License.

## Usage ##

RT-Thread RTOS uses [scons](http://www.scons.org) as its building system. Therefore, please install scons and Python 2.7 firstly. 

## Contribution ##

Thank all of RT-Thread Developers.