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as the link in the submission doest even have any pics just fluff leading to the real article here (with pics)

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9981902594.html

See http://www.linuxdevices.com/ for probably the single best central resource for what you can buy off the shelf already.

Obviously the true reason behind it is that the penguins are binary only, with no source avaiable and are being banned one by one by Martin Bligh Greg Kroah-Hartman! Note: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3501846795.html

"If you have listened to Linus and his lieutenants (Andrew Morton etc.), they say they are not focused on the desktop"

I can't actually recall reading anything Torvalds said regarding their focus. Do you have a link to what they actually said regarding the Desktop.

"They are focused on the high-end. Which makes sense to me - Microsoft dominates the desktop, the high-end is up for grabs right now"

The Desktop gets more visibility which is why when the average PHB decides to buy a server he chooses what he's already familar with, Windows. Ignoring the desktop would be a massive error.

"Linux has improved a lot for the high-end, but still needs work done. I just was speaking with someone from Oracle recently who told me how in an environment with a lot of Linuxes connected to a lot of SANs, the 2.4 kernel was complete junk. He did say things were getting better with the 2.6"

Has this been refered to on the kernel mailing list linux.kernel. Do other users of Oracle have this problem. You don't provide a lot of technical details. Is there a reference you can provide for such issues. Running a database is relativly trivial compared to calculating nuclear reactions or doing the graphics on 'Lord of the Ring' and would require very high-end equipment. What I don't understand how CERN and Weta Digital were able to get any work on the 'still needs work done' Linux OS.

"Hey here's another example - what if I want a fricking kernel dump when my system crashes? What, I can't dump it to disk like Solaris and every other enterprise UNIX does?"

You do seem to be unfortunate in your choice of OS. I don't know what use a kernel dump is unless you're actually compiling the kernel ;) . Something I've never been called on to do. Doesn't Linux have the Kdump utility that dumps its data to disk.

"I have to send it over the network (which comes to a host of problems which I won't go into here)? Yes, yes, I know about the problems of doing this for a variety of hardware, but this is the sort of thing I'm talking about"

Yet more problems. I don't understand, I thought the kernel dump was a standard file saved locally and what's the difficulty in sending it over the network.

You paint a complete horror story of maintaining a Linux network. If I was reading this and had no first hand experience of using Linux I would run straight back to the nice safe OS that comes with training wheels attached. Kernel dump!! ... :)

was What do Linus and his lieutenants say? (Score:5, AstroT~1)

Multi-GHz desktop CPUs have a hard time keeping up with gigabit ethernet. Imagine what kind of CPU your digital camera and USB flash drive is going to need...

Don't go into hardware... Please!

And once you have it connected, it still doesn't solve anything, because you have to decide on protocols over ethernet (unlike USB/Firewire/etc.) because there is no standard system of multi-user authenticated bidirectional communications over IP.

Everyone will create their own propritary communication app, or downgrade to brain-dead file-copy-only with none of the useful features of the device (a lot like many MP3 players, sadly).

No, no, no. There has to be ONE standard, or there's no point.

There's one set way for USB devices to communicate, so every system on the planet has those built in. Once you have 500 different protocols for different devices, you've completely ruined the utility of your Ethernet peripheral interface.

I want to know why this is being reported as news now and on a linux site of all places, this thing appeared on the web, OSNews if not Slashdot, months ago, and we didn't care then either.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=15636

Ah, the wonders of linuxdevices/windowsfordevices/gimmepageviewsdontc areabouttheplatform

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9902727147.html
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS5549165530 .html

Does it run linux..? Yes it does! And you can even open a shell and write programs for it.

Didn't they already make something like that?

I think they've called it the Ultra Mobile PC. (UMPC) Incidentally, I clicked on "hardware" and found amusingly vague specs.

Here's what you do: Just strip-out all the junk (HD, and WindowsXP) keeping the real goods (install around 40GB permanent flash storage, upgrade RAM, expand Wi-Fi with 10/100 Ethernet) and you've got a suprisingly usable brick. Expand further to use CF/SD/MMC/PCMCIA and it becomes ultra-usable. I bet it wouldn't cost all that much in the end.

Add some embedded linux and you're ready to go!

Just how much do they pay people to think up these things anyway? (too much)

That's why we all need to buy an OpenMoko, and then someone needs to write a public key encrypted network layer.

I can't really tell which distro you should choose. But I can give you an advice to look around on http://www.linuxdevices.com/. There you have the best overview on what is going on in the embedded Linux market. (imho)

Not on this I'm not and I specifically noted that there was a difference between preemption and multi-threading. You should so some research on these subjects and here is one link to help you learn when Linux got preemption:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3989618385.html

LoB

Linux Devices has a fairly comprehensive list of just what technologies 'GPL Java' encompasses. The std libraries are GPL with the classpath extension.

Actually, Microsoft does have a history of attacking Linux and the open source community.

Further, their dubious business practices are well known. They have been fined by the US, EU, and South Korea.

See:
Microsoft declares war on free software model
Microsoft takes potshots at (Embedded) Linux
Microsoft launches attack on open source software
Open-source vendors respond to Microsoft 'attack

According to this the phone will accept MicroSD cards, also lets not forget it has bluetooth, so you could use a bluetooth stereo headset if you're so inclined. I'm tempted by the GPS myself.

It does have a SIM card.

from the Open Source in Mobile conference in Amsterdam is available here:

Open, but not as usual

Click the blue square at the bottom of the page

... can be found on Linux Devices: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2986976174.html and also http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7056478804.html

... can be found on Linux Devices: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2986976174.html and also http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7056478804.html

People who ask for statistics tend to forget the fact that unlike OS X, Linux runs on rather more than just personal computers and servers. There is a large and growing market for embedded Linux that includes:

3 million Tivo subscribers in the US, plus another million in the UK (Sky+).

These mobile phones use Linux as their OS: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9423084269. html

According to this article (http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/ 3584431), Linux had a 23% share of the mobile phone market in 2005, which is nearly twice as much as Microsoft's 12.5% during the same period.

In this article (http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_13247 3_11.html), Gartner say that there were 778.75 million mobile phones sold in 2005, so Linux's 23% of that equates to something in excess of 179 million units, which is a hell of a lot more than the 4 million or so Macs that were sold in the same year.

Note also that embedded Linux is used on a lot more than mobile phones, e.g:

A bunch of VOIP phones: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9615003856. html
Linux-based routers, switches, and similar devices: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2005548492.html
Tablets and webpads with Linux: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8349493265.html
A high-end music synthesizer: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/09/inside- the-korg-oasys.html

I could probably Google around and find all manner of other embedded systems running Linux, but cannot be bothered.

People who ask for statistics tend to forget the fact that unlike OS X, Linux runs on rather more than just personal computers and servers. There is a large and growing market for embedded Linux that includes:

3 million Tivo subscribers in the US, plus another million in the UK (Sky+).

These mobile phones use Linux as their OS: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9423084269. html

According to this article (http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/ 3584431), Linux had a 23% share of the mobile phone market in 2005, which is nearly twice as much as Microsoft's 12.5% during the same period.

In this article (http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_13247 3_11.html), Gartner say that there were 778.75 million mobile phones sold in 2005, so Linux's 23% of that equates to something in excess of 179 million units, which is a hell of a lot more than the 4 million or so Macs that were sold in the same year.

Note also that embedded Linux is used on a lot more than mobile phones, e.g:

A bunch of VOIP phones: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9615003856. html
Linux-based routers, switches, and similar devices: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2005548492.html
Tablets and webpads with Linux: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8349493265.html
A high-end music synthesizer: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/09/inside- the-korg-oasys.html

I could probably Google around and find all manner of other embedded systems running Linux, but cannot be bothered.

People who ask for statistics tend to forget the fact that unlike OS X, Linux runs on rather more than just personal computers and servers. There is a large and growing market for embedded Linux that includes:

3 million Tivo subscribers in the US, plus another million in the UK (Sky+).

These mobile phones use Linux as their OS: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9423084269. html

According to this article (http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/ 3584431), Linux had a 23% share of the mobile phone market in 2005, which is nearly twice as much as Microsoft's 12.5% during the same period.

In this article (http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_13247 3_11.html), Gartner say that there were 778.75 million mobile phones sold in 2005, so Linux's 23% of that equates to something in excess of 179 million units, which is a hell of a lot more than the 4 million or so Macs that were sold in the same year.

Note also that embedded Linux is used on a lot more than mobile phones, e.g:

A bunch of VOIP phones: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9615003856. html
Linux-based routers, switches, and similar devices: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2005548492.html
Tablets and webpads with Linux: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8349493265.html
A high-end music synthesizer: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/09/inside- the-korg-oasys.html

I could probably Google around and find all manner of other embedded systems running Linux, but cannot be bothered.

People who ask for statistics tend to forget the fact that unlike OS X, Linux runs on rather more than just personal computers and servers. There is a large and growing market for embedded Linux that includes:

3 million Tivo subscribers in the US, plus another million in the UK (Sky+).

These mobile phones use Linux as their OS: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9423084269. html

According to this article (http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/ 3584431), Linux had a 23% share of the mobile phone market in 2005, which is nearly twice as much as Microsoft's 12.5% during the same period.

In this article (http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_13247 3_11.html), Gartner say that there were 778.75 million mobile phones sold in 2005, so Linux's 23% of that equates to something in excess of 179 million units, which is a hell of a lot more than the 4 million or so Macs that were sold in the same year.

Note also that embedded Linux is used on a lot more than mobile phones, e.g:

A bunch of VOIP phones: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9615003856. html
Linux-based routers, switches, and similar devices: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2005548492.html
Tablets and webpads with Linux: http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8349493265.html
A high-end music synthesizer: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/09/inside- the-korg-oasys.html

I could probably Google around and find all manner of other embedded systems running Linux, but cannot be bothered.

Ooops, I ment to say LCD monitors not LED monitors. Keep in mind that I am not a tech or an expert on the different types of monitors.

I recently read a review of a computer that uses the EE (energy efficient) versions of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor which only used 54 Watts. Another alternative for someone doesn't need to run Windows XP or Windows Vista might be the NorhTec MicroClient Jr.which is a tiny PC that draws 8 Watts and is capable of running Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux is an extra-light weight stripped down version of Linux which has less impressive graphics than most other Linux distros. You could browse the Internet, send email and do word processing with it. I have never actually tried one of their computers. Perhaps it could be hooked to a small efficient LCD monitor (or whatever is most efficient). Just using a laptop would probably be an even simpler solution. A person could charge the laptop's battery for a few minutes ahead of using it.

The Watt-meter that I used on my computer was the $39.99 Kill-A-Watt meter.

In the article I just noticed that the photo shows a woman dressed up in nice clothes leisurely peddling in front of an inefficient CRT monitor. She isn't even sweating but then, apparently she isn't really powering the computer.

"Our startup honestly wanted to use OSS products. We do not want to spend time for any OSS bug fixing so our main requirement was -official support for all OSS products-"

Fud #1: Use OSS and you spend all you time fixing bugs. According to this, the Trolltech Qt Open Source Edition is available under the GPL license. And if you subscribe to one of the support groups you won't have to spend all your time hunting down bugs. Also if your company sells any OSS product, you won't have to pay any upstream 'licenses'. Did you factor in licensing costs in your figures for the C# IDE, WinCE and Vxworks?

From the same page: "Trolltech Qt License Pricing One Platform Console Edition, 1420, Desktop Light Edition, 1590, Desktop Edition, 2630"

You didn't state what business your startup is in, but if you are selling down stream solutions use GPL er ,, OSS solutions. You did say you rewrote everything to C# so you must have pretty intelligent developers. If you are an end user get a support contract. You know something as I reread your post I get a strong wiff of trolleri.

Look at the pictures of the first and last devices you mentioned, and then look at the pic of the D-Link one from the article. They're all the same phone!

Look at the pictures of the first and last devices you mentioned, and then look at the pic of the D-Link one from the article. They're all the same phone!

That's expandable by SD/MiniSD/MicroSD, right? And how much working memory is there? Or is this the same memory and do you lose everything when you power down?

Yeah, that was my first reaction, too. When I first glanced at the article, I figured I would almost be able to forgive D-Link for claiming the GPL was invalid . The phone sounded good enough that my convictions would have kept me feeling guilty while I imagined having this thing.

But without expandable storage (1GB minimum), I really cannot imagine even paying one hundred dollars for such a device (even if D-Link did do the honorable thing and apologize publically to the Linux community).

Fortunately, a few Chinese companies and one French one have come out with similar things. These others, however, do not come with D-Link's stigma of being the first company to bring the GPL into court. And the "unlocked" thing is irrelevant outside of the US because only US phone companies are so greedy as to "lock" users cellphones from them. This is the same stupid mentality that gave rise to stupid ideas like DRM.

That's expandable by SD/MiniSD/MicroSD, right? And how much working memory is there? Or is this the same memory and do you lose everything when you power down?

Yeah, that was my first reaction, too. When I first glanced at the article, I figured I would almost be able to forgive D-Link for claiming the GPL was invalid . The phone sounded good enough that my convictions would have kept me feeling guilty while I imagined having this thing.

But without expandable storage (1GB minimum), I really cannot imagine even paying one hundred dollars for such a device (even if D-Link did do the honorable thing and apologize publically to the Linux community).

Fortunately, a few Chinese companies and one French one have come out with similar things. These others, however, do not come with D-Link's stigma of being the first company to bring the GPL into court. And the "unlocked" thing is irrelevant outside of the US because only US phone companies are so greedy as to "lock" users cellphones from them. This is the same stupid mentality that gave rise to stupid ideas like DRM.

That's expandable by SD/MiniSD/MicroSD, right? And how much working memory is there? Or is this the same memory and do you lose everything when you power down?

Yeah, that was my first reaction, too. When I first glanced at the article, I figured I would almost be able to forgive D-Link for claiming the GPL was invalid . The phone sounded good enough that my convictions would have kept me feeling guilty while I imagined having this thing.

But without expandable storage (1GB minimum), I really cannot imagine even paying one hundred dollars for such a device (even if D-Link did do the honorable thing and apologize publically to the Linux community).

Fortunately, a few Chinese companies and one French one have come out with similar things. These others, however, do not come with D-Link's stigma of being the first company to bring the GPL into court. And the "unlocked" thing is irrelevant outside of the US because only US phone companies are so greedy as to "lock" users cellphones from them. This is the same stupid mentality that gave rise to stupid ideas like DRM.

That's expandable by SD/MiniSD/MicroSD, right? And how much working memory is there? Or is this the same memory and do you lose everything when you power down?

Yeah, that was my first reaction, too. When I first glanced at the article, I figured I would almost be able to forgive D-Link for claiming the GPL was invalid . The phone sounded good enough that my convictions would have kept me feeling guilty while I imagined having this thing.

But without expandable storage (1GB minimum), I really cannot imagine even paying one hundred dollars for such a device (even if D-Link did do the honorable thing and apologize publically to the Linux community).

Fortunately, a few Chinese companies and one French one have come out with similar things. These others, however, do not come with D-Link's stigma of being the first company to bring the GPL into court. And the "unlocked" thing is irrelevant outside of the US because only US phone companies are so greedy as to "lock" users cellphones from them. This is the same stupid mentality that gave rise to stupid ideas like DRM.

Good point, try here:
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9525079329.html

Cat. Mouse. Cat. Mouse.

So now we just counter this illegal wiretapping (yes, its still illegal, even though they've passed a law that makes it "legal") with extra strong encryption and Civil Disobedience.

Use TrueCrypt with the AES-Twofish-Serpent algorithm on your PC (Linux, Mac or Windows). If you want to use something simliar on BSD, look into GELI encryption for those partitions.

For phones, you could look into encryption handsets or telephone scramblers. There's this one too, or the Cryptophone GSM Phone Encryption solution. Google around, there's quite a few hundred solutions in this space... stack them together for even more security.

Disclaimer: I don't personally know how strong these algorithms are on these handsets, so use at your own risk.

With VoIP, you could easily layer whatever encryption you want on top of it. Bounce your call through a few foreign routers, run it through Privoxy, Tor and i2p and you should be good to go. Yes, it will incur some latency.. but I'd rather sacrifice speed for security or privacy, wouldn't you? Here is an article on securing VoIP. Worthwhile reading if you're using it or considering it.

Cat. Mouse. Cat. Mouse.

Now its OUR turn.

You take from us, we take back.

Both Svartalf (2997) and markwalling (863035) mention it, but, to re-iterate, this product is being offered exclusively through Thinkgeek.

It seems slightly disingenuous to post a story from another website, http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4532837874.html , about the Neuros OSD DVR without mentioning that Thinkgeek and Slashdot are owned by the same company and that Thinkgeek is the sole distributor for now.

A quick disclaimer would be probably be appropriate in the future.

Yeah, stupid ricers

I was always under the impression that any probes/landers had to use "rad-hardened" processors to deal with the solar radiation in space. Is this less of a concern for rovers and the like since they could be adequately shielded until entering the atmosphere of another planet/moon? Meanwhile, get a load of the wacky space Centaur!: http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/nasa_drats_ centaur.jpg

If this is the same machine that was demoed earlier this year it's not a laptop.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6301677114.html

The Cell is already available as a PCI-Express add-in card (that even runs linux!) which sounds awfully like what a GPU is...

A GPU for $8000 and that's sold by SONY, of them all, at $600 with a Blu-Ray player and other things. Now that sounds an awful lot like getting raped in the ass with the HUGE gold bar you have to hand them.

The Cell Processor

Three or four people have brought up the idea that problem would work well for the cell processor. But I don't think anyone has really seen the (rays of) light on the issue. The Cell is perfect for this. Some facts:
1) Raytracing is highly vectorized. The Cell's many processors are optimized for vector calculations.
2) Raytracing scales linearly with the number of cores. The Cell has 8 (at least in its current manifestation).
3) The Cell is already available as a PCI-Express add-in card (that even runs linux!) which sounds awfully like what a GPU is... 4) The Cell is a bitch to program. But then, so are GPUs...so maybe it's not that ridiculous to see the future of the GPU...from IBM.

How ironic it is that Intel is now pushing this technology...

You should have stopped with your last comment - you've gone beyond stupid now.

You cannot report bugs to the kernel team if your kernel includes third party code

Dumb. They're not third party drivers they're included in the main kernel tree. The rest of your little rant their is based on that first, incorrect presumption.

It is an absolute fallacy that open source automatically means it is being audited by....

Dumb straw man. I didn't say open source automatically gets audited - I said the linux kernel is audited.

And it is. There's the sparse kernel auditing project, the coverity people are doing a free, ongoing audit, the ongoing LKAP (linux kernel auditting project), I could go on and on.

The openness or closedness of code has no bearing on the capacity for an audit.

Beyond stupid. Open code can be independantly audited. Closed code cannot. Do you even read what you write? Tell me how I can run sparse on the nvidia source code.

And I'll stick with the current best video card and driver combination available for Unix and Unix look-alikes.

I think you meant to say 'fastest' rather than 'best'. And nvidia does not release a driver for UNIX that I'm aware of.

The Symbian OS is primarly for smartphones, and unfortunately they usually make for lousy PDAs. But if you're still interested check out the Nokia E61 or Sony Ericsson M600i. Same could be said about RIM's Blackberry OS.

There's also an plethora of quirky, mostly-discontinued embedded linux PDAs, including the geek-famous Zaurus.

If you thought having only two major players for PDA OS's was unfortunate, Palm has started replacing the Palm OS with Windows Mobile on some of their own hardware.

Mine is going to be a Trolltech-designed Linux-Running Greenphone. Sooner or later someone will make a Palm clone interface for it (or even better, a Newton clone) and all will be golden. And it will run Python out of the box, so you should be happy with it too.

I will have to wait a bit, alas, for I just bought a Treo 650 three weeks ago. It hasn't crashed once since either, so I am quite happy with it. Now, if I could just find a cheap screenless bluetooth GPS unit to go with it...

Road has been making those for years. Ref http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS6443438627.html .
Though when I contacted them on behalf of the company I work for, over a year ago, they replied along the lines of "we have enough customers, please ask again later."
Meanwhile, I suggest using Sharp Zauri for linux-PDA needs and waiting for OpenEZX project to hack open a motorola cell-phone.

Only late by a year.
(And a half)

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS6443438627.html

I think your problem is that you have no concept of how real-time systems and robots are built. Most of them, sooner or later, become collections of dozens of embedded systems, and many of those need to be programmed individually.

There is no "sooner or later" in a one-day competition. Like any project, you look at the requirements and then you choose implementation, not the other way around. If you proposed to your team that this vehicle should be built using "dozens of embedded systems", I'd be surprised if anyone agreed.

> Got any pointers to this large body of robotics code that only runs on Linux?
This is a good start to find out about real-time and embedded Linux: http://www.linuxdevices.com/

I'm familiar with that site. But I didn't find a large body of Linux-only robotics code there. Got a more specific link?

Yes, and the OS kernel needs to be modified to run, say, on one of the many embedded systems that you can buy.

Many dev kits are sold with one or more OSes supported by the manufacturer. The one used by the winning team apparently had a version of XP embedded available.

For example, we're using a bunch of intelligent cameras in our work, and they run embedded Linux inside the camera. We have dozens of other embedded systems running Linux that couldn't possibly run Windows. And those embedded systems don't run stripped down Linux systems, they are fully functional, comfortable Linux environments.

Sounds like a cool job.

Even if you managed to put Windows on one of those devices, it would, for all practical purposes, still be a different OS from anything you are used to.

All I care is that it fits my requirements. I don't care if it isn't the same as a standard Windows desktop machine. Heck, I'd hope that they'd cut out all the bloat.

The issues are licensing, source code accessibility, range of available hardware platforms that the software runs on, minimum hardware requirements, and user community.

"Does the solution solve the problem?" That's the question that matters to me in the end.

In this case, licensing is end-user only: they aren't selling the thing. Clearly, the winning team in this contest found a Windows-based SBC that suited their requirements, which covers the source code/hardware platforms/hardware requirements issues. Having a "user community" is useful, but unless you are copy-and-paste hackers, most coding/technical issues are going to be solved in-house.

I'm certain the winning team here could have also implemented their solution using Linux. For whatever reason (lack of Linux knowledge, free hardware/software donations, huge monetary bribes directly from Bill Gates?), they chose not to.

I certainly believe you when you say you couldn't possibly implement your work with Windows devices. That's not what we are talking about though.

And, I'm sorry, if you think that those issues don't matter when building or delivering products, you are both inexperienced and naive.

I realize I may not have as much experience as you. 20 years of development isn't very much, I know. And having worked on videogames that sold millions of copies, I probably don't have the extensive product development experience you do. But try to keep the personal insults out of an otherwise interesting discussion.

When you have an autonomous vehicle project to complete, you need an OS that runs on exactly ONE piece of hardware, not a variety. If a particular platform (hardware + OS) suits your requirements, it should obviously be considered.

I think your problem is that you have no concept of how real-time systems and robots are built. Most of them, sooner or later, become collections of dozens of embedded systems, and many of those need to be programmed individually.

How are robotics tasks related to the OS? Got any pointers to this large body of robotics code that only runs on Linux?

This is a good start to find out about real-time and embedded Linux: http://www.linuxdevices.com/

Only in cases where the OS itself is modified does access to the OS source code matter. Are you talking about application-level code or kernel code?

Yes, and the OS kernel needs to be modified to run, say, on one of the many embedded systems that you can buy. For example, we're using a bunch of intelligent cameras in our work, and they run embedded Linux inside the camera. We have dozens of other embedded systems running Linux that couldn't possibly run Windows. And those embedded systems don't run stripped down Linux systems, they are fully functional, comfortable Linux environments. Even if you managed to put Windows on one of those devices, it would, for all practical purposes, still be a different OS from anything you are used to.

My point was that the choice of OS isn't all that important.

You merely keep making the same point over and over again, that from a technical point of view, Windows XP and Linux kernels are functionally similar. They are that, but it's irrelevant.

The issues are licensing, source code accessibility, range of available hardware platforms that the software runs on, minimum hardware requirements, and user community. And, I'm sorry, if you think that those issues don't matter when building or delivering products, you are both inexperienced and naive.

A good example, since the biomass of all ants on earth is a multiple of the biomass of all elephants. Even more, the ants in total are much more powerfull than the elephants and will be around when elephants are long gone.

And just like the ants linux is creeping in every part of your flat.

I put my stakes on the ants.

Um, Debian is HP's linux distribution of choice. HP maintains the Carrier Grade version of Sarge. which they supply to Motorola and others.

I just don't understand where this myth that you cannot get support for debian comes from. With 658 Debian consultants in 59 countries Debian seems to have more support options than most other distributions. I will admit that some of those consultants are single person outfits. But HP is also on the list.

You might want to reexamine your assumptions.

Um, Debian is HP's linux distribution of choice. HP maintains the Carrier Grade version of Sarge. which they supply to Motorola and others.

I just don't understand where this myth that you cannot get support for debian comes from. With 658 Debian consultants in 59 countries Debian seems to have more support options than most other distributions. I will admit that some of those consultants are single person outfits. But HP is also on the list.

You might want to reexamine your assumptions.

I got it a bit wrong, AMD are closing their Geode design center, killing several of the planned design updates in the process.