“Why Embedded Linux?“
“As Linux continues to gain strength in the traditional PC
arena, a number of people are evaluating Linux for use in the
revolution beyond the PC desktop: the Post PC revolution. Whereas
the PC era created a vast homogenous platform for application
development and deployment, the Post PC revolution is creating
numerous vertical application opportunities ranging from consumer
electronics to digital imaging to office automation to internet
appliances to automotive control and beyond. The Post PC era will
mean more microprocessors being more pervasive and doing more
things than would be possible in a PC-oriented world. This in turn
means that new solutions are needed for application development and
application deployment.”
“Intelligent design, good engineering, a large development
community, and the GNU software development tools have made it
possible to port Linux from its roots as a PC operating system to
many of the major processors that are prevalent today, including
the Alpha, ARM, IA-64, MIPS, PA-RISC, PowerPC, and SPARC. This
portability, a rich set of internet capabilities and the GNU tools
(which are used by the majority of all embedded system developers)
make Linux appear to be a natural for the embedded systems market,
and indeed there are products reaching the market today with Linux
inside. But as new companies come to market with their own versions
of embedded Linux, the ever-present danger of fragmentation
arises.”