“Start-up Transmeta, which plans to take on Intel with a new
chip for mobile devices, has big plans for the Linux operating
system as well.
Though Transmeta won’t specifically sell a Linux product, it
will give a version of the operating system called “Mobile Linux”
to hardware makers so they have one to run on portable Internet
access devices using Transmeta’s chips, said product manager Marc
Fleischmann at a conference here.”
“Getting Linux to work in very small devices has posed
challenges because of limitations on how much memory and processing
horsepower is available to manufacturers, because powerful
processors usually mean batteries drain quickly. They do so because
hard disks often are completely missing, and because input hardware
such as keyboards and mice are hard to use if present at all.
Transmeta’s Linux aims to help addresses these areas.”