LinuxDevices.com Embedded Linux Newsletter -- January 4, 2001


Welcome to the LinuxDevices.com
Embedded Linux Newsletter
January 4, 2001

by Rick Lehrbaum -- Executive Editor
ZDNet's LinuxDevices.com


*** HAPPY NEW YEAR ***

LinuxDevices.com wishes all our friends in the Embedded Linux community a healthy, happy, and successful 2001! It has been a cherished privilege to serve you during the past year, and we look forward to an exciting year of Embedded Linux technology development and market growth.

*** THE 2001 EMBEDDED LINUX MARKET SURVEY ***

As part of our continuing efforts to support the rapidly growing Embedded Linux Market, we are pleased to announce the online 2001 Embedded Linux Market Survey. The survey, which is structured in three parts, asks developers of Linux-based embedded systems and intelligent devices to anonymously provide information about their applications, their embedded Linux OS requirements and preferences, and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of using Linux in embedded applications.

Note: Please participate in this new survey, even if you already did so in 2000. Thank you!

VOTE HERE!

*** OTHER NEWS ***

Linux Interest Group Meeting announced -- The Linux Interest Group is holding an open meeting during the first day of the next meeting of the Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum which takes place on February 6-8, 2001 in San Jose, CA. The open session will feature several talks on embedded and real-time Linux. story

Philips USB controller gains Linux support -- SoftConnex's USBLink host software will support Philips Semiconductors' ISP1161/2 single-chip USB host/interface controller in Internet appliance, PDA, set-top-box, and digital audio player applications. story

Not an Open-and-Shut Case -- Many in the RTOS industry believe that freedom from royalties is the best way to develop applications for embedded devices. But is free software really free? Edward J. Correia, Editor of SD Times, explores some opposing viewpoints in this interesting interview with representatives of Red Hat, Wind River, QNX, Microware, and Green Hills. story

Status of Linux kernel 2.4 -- it's getting closer -- Linux kernel 2.4 didn't quite make it out in 2000, but it's getting close. Here are two reports on its progress, from eWEEK's Peter Galli and ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley. story

TinyLogin 0.80 released -- Lineo released the latest version of TinyLogin -- version 0.80. TinyLogin is a suite of tiny utilities for handling login, authentication, password alteration, user/group maintenance on an embedded Linux system. story

Embedded Linux "Swiss army knife" gets an upgrade -- Lineo released BusyBox version 0.48, the latest version of the so-called "Swiss army knife" of freely available open source Embedded Linux utilities and tools. BusyBox makes customizing embedded systems convenient and demonstrates the possibility of putting open source Linux software on the smallest electronic devices. story

Transmeta to help AMD push into servers -- Advanced Micro Devices plans to take on Intel in the server market, enlisting one of its own competitors (Transmeta) to help out. The move appears to be an endorsement by AMD of Transmeta's "code morphing" technology. story

New scoring method simplifies processor comparisons -- EEMBC, the embedded microprocessor benchmark consortium, announced that it will begin publishing certified, consolidated benchmark scores for processor performance in five application areas: networks, telecom, consumer, office equipment, and automotive. story

*** LINKS OF THE WEEK ***

CX -- a compact Linux for compact boot media -- CX is designed for Linux appliance type applications where size, ruggedness, and performance are important design goals. CX supports very large (multiple) ramdisks, resulting in high performance, reliability, and improved security against root filesystem corruption. story

The buildkernel script -- an intelligent tool that will build a new linux kernel for you. Easy for a novice to use, yet flexible and powerful enough to be useful for experienced users, too. story

liblcd -- a Linux C driver for serial LCDs -- although this Linux C library was written for a specific serially-interfaced LCD display, the techniques should prove useful with many serial LCDs. story

Linux-IrDA project -- an implementation of the IrDA standards specifications for the Linux kernel. The code is licensed under the GNU Public license (GPL) and is now included in Linux-2.2. story

The Linux for (PowerPC) Embedded Systems how-to -- NOTE: Don't let the name of this how-to fool you! Although it was created to focus on PowerPC Linux, this how-to is, in reality, one of the most extensive surveys of useful information pertaining to embedding Linux available -- no matter what the flavor! story

KDevelop open source integrated development environment -- this project was begun in 1998 to build an easy to use C/C++ Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Unix. The KDevelop IDE is now publicly available under the GPL and supports KDE/Qt, GNOME, plain C, and C++ projects. story

*** FREQUENTLY UPDATED QUICK REFERENCE GUIDES ***

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