"... One thing that caught my eye this month was a
survey by Evans Data showing that Linux is still increasing its
share in the marketplace. I can attest to this, since I recently
got an inquiry about putting Linux into an industrial battery
charger. If Linux is reaching into the industrial arena, it has
well and truly arrived.
In the design talks with the client, I raised concerns about
Linux being overkill for this project. After all, there are lighter
weight RTOSs out there that would do the job. The client, however,
wanted something with a broad name recognition. Basing the device
on Linux gave them a marketing advantage that none of the other
RTOS's currently could provide. Linux has received a lot of press
lately, so in this context, it made sense for them to use Linux.
And besides, the application wasn't hard real time ? it collected
several 10's of data points over the course of a second, polling
every few hundred milliseconds ? nothing Linux can't handle."
