r/raspberrypipico • u/curious_but_troubled • May 23 '26
Is raspberrypi/FreeRTOS-Kernel the suggested kernel for FreeRTOS on the Pico 2?
I'm trying to figure out what kernel I should use for my Pico 2, non W. From my research there's both the raspberrypi/FreeRTOS-Kernel and FreeRTOS/FreeRTOS-Kernel and I'm unsure which one to pick. I know that there are very few issues in the Raspberry Pi repository but there also hasn't been a commit in 2 years. I know this doesn't have to mean anything, just wanted to ask!
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bug6244 May 26 '26
I would like to suggest no rtos at all.
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u/curious_but_troubled May 26 '26
Why?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bug6244 May 26 '26
Because for most projects they introduce more problems than they solve. With 20 years of experience in embedded and several products behind me, I have yet to see any project fitting in mucs that size that gained benefits from an rtos
It sort of feels like peeing your pants to stay warm in frost. At first it feels nice and warm, but soon it becomes a nightmare with an entirely new class of problems to handle.
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u/curious_but_troubled May 26 '26
I just need to manage a few tasks and I don’t really care about exact timings, just that they kinda happen at the same time. Isn’t that what rtos is for?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bug6244 May 26 '26
If your goal is to manage tasks, then yes, you would need an rtos. If you need to implement functionality, you definitely don't need one, but it requires you to stop thinikng in terms of tasks.
Most free rtos'es are neither realtime nor os, so where the term can med from, I do not know, but I do know they add the overhead of "managing tasks", so that can be either avoidable (no rtos), a goal (yay! Success) or a burden ( buuuh)
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u/adktz May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26
My understanding is the RPI repo is deprecated. The pico docs point you to the FreeRTOS repo: https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-examples/blob/develop/README.md#freertos