Does Java RTS require an operating system? If so, which one?
Yes. Java RTS 2.1 uses Solaris 10 (Update 4 and 5), or Linux with real-time POSIX APIs. (For some further details, please see section Java RTS Minimum Recommended System Requirements.) Future releases will use other real-time operating systems (RTOS’s) as well. In order to provide real-time capabilities at the Java level, Java RTS requires a real-time capable operating system underneath it to achieve the low latencies typical of practical real-time systems. Note that the RTSJ can only be as good at real-time as the underlying RTOS is, unless that RTOS is modified to provide more advanced real-time functionality. The Java RTS team is not in the OS business and will thus use the full capacities of the underlying OS. That being said, we are in a position to do very clever things with the underlying OS because the RTSJ offers such a simple API.
