Intel Galileo combines Intel technology with support for Arduino ready-made hardware expansion cards (called "shields") and the Arduino software development environment and libraries. The development board runs an open source
Linux operating system with the Arduino software libraries, enabling re-use of existing software, called "sketches". The sketch runs every time the board is powered. Intel Galileo can be programmed through
OS X,
Microsoft Windows and Linux host operating software. The board is also designed to be hardware and software compatible with the Arduino shield ecosystem. Intel Galileo features the
Intel Quark SoC X1000, the first product from the
Intel Quark technology family of low-power, small-core products. Intel Quark represents Intel's attempt to compete within markets such as the
Internet of Things and
wearable computing. Designed in Ireland, the Quark SoC X1000 is a 32-bit, single core, single-thread, Pentium (P54C/i586) instruction set architecture (ISA)-compatible CPU, operating at speeds up to 400 MHz. The Quark is seen by some as Intel's answer to
ARM, the processor design featured in smartphones and other single-board computers. At a clock speed of 400 MHz, together with 256 Mb of
DDR3 RAM and 8 Mb
flash memory, the Galileo is much more powerful than competing Arduino boards. The Mega 2560, for example, has a clock speed of 16 MHz, 8 Kb RAM and 256 Kb flash memory. It would be more appropriate to compare the Galileo to another
single-board computer, such as the
Raspberry Pi. The latest iteration, the Pi 3 Model B, replaced the Pi 2 Model B in February 2016. It is more powerful than the older Galileo Gen 2, featuring a 1.2 GHz CPU and 1 GB RAM. Both Galileo boards support the Arduino shield ecosystem. Unlike most Arduino boards, the Intel boards support both 3.3 V and 5 V shields. The Intel development board comes with several computing industry standard I/O interfaces. The support for
PCI Express means that Wifi, Bluetooth or GSM cards can be plugged in to the board. It also enables usage of solid state drives with the Galileo. This support was, however, suspended by Microsoft on 30 November 2015. Microsoft cited hardware concerns, with some specifically attributing it to the low clock speed of the Galileo. The Galileo supports the Arduino IDE running atop an unmodified Linux software stack, supported by a common open source tool chain. The board comes pre-loaded with an SPI image of Linux. Although this version (Yocto 1.4 Poky Linux) has very limited features (e.g. it does not include a Wi-Fi module), it does not require any storage devices to be added. Intel also provides more functional versions of Linux for the boards. The "SD-Card" image can be downloaded and loaded onto the board via a Micro SD card. It includes, among a multitude of modules, a Wi-Fi module, support for
OpenCV to enable computer vision,
ALSA for sound processing and
Node.js for
JavaScript capabilities. The Galileo can be seen as truly
open source, as both the schematics and the source code are freely available for download without a software license agreement. However, some argued that the hardware shouldn't be designated open source if the
processor core isn't also made open-source. == Arduino ecosystem ==