“But judging by the vendors at CES, Linux isn’t close to
breaking into this space. There really was only one vendor that was
pushing Linux at all, and that was Agenda, showing off the Agenda
VR3 in the shadow of Palm Computing in the Palm Pavilion.”
“There were also many other vendors that were showing
Linux-based devices but never let on that Linux was running under
the hood. Tivo had a huge booth to show off the various models of
the Tivo, while Tivo licensees Sony and Philips were showing off
their Tivo devices. (A side note: Santa Claus delivered a new Tivo
to the Reichard residence at Christmas — the Tivo that is
integrated with DirecTV service. The integration between Tivo and
DirecTV is great, but the unit is slower than heck when you’re
scrolling the show listings or surfing between channels. Overall,
I’m OK with it, but the slowness is frustrating.) ZapMedia was
showing off its Linux-based ZapStation, which will play CDs and
DVDs, streaming audio/video, as well as allow you to surf the Web
and watch cable TV. Again, no mention of Linux here.”
“More disappointing was the Transmeta booth, where the firm that
employs Linus Torvalds put a lot of time showing off Windows-based
subnotebooks from the likes of Hitachi. These subnotebooks are for
the Japanese market, but my brief hands-on testing didn’t reveal
anything unique about them (which isn’t surprising; one cannot
determine long battery life based on a short experience at a trade
show). Still, not having a single Linux-based machine at the
Transmeta booth is a kick in the teeth to the Linux world.”