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Device Hackers Do It With Linux
An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com has published the results of its annual Embedded Linux Market Survey probing developer preferences and industry trends. Over the last four years, the survey has become an important resource for industry analysts and decision makers. Among the revelations: the embedded Linux tools and OS provider market is wide open, with no single dominant vendor; developers care most about Cost/Freeness; ARM is overtaking x86 in embedded systems; developers prefer support fees to runtime license models; and, Linux dwarves all other embedded operating systems, projected for use in half of all embedded projects during the next two years."
nah, just typical slashdottie illiteracy. he wanted the verb form and wrote the plural; I'll bet he misues the possesive form where he wants to write a plural as well. the so-called editors never fix this stuff, probably because their writing skills are about equally bad.
Slashdot: grammar for loser. cunt spill.
Linux may kick some ass in the embedded market, but PC hardware makers are still disappointingly reluctant to release information needed to ensure that their hardware works to its fullest extent under everyone's favorite OSS kernel.
Matrox used to release specifications so that those willing to roll their own drivers could take advantage of their hardware. This is sadly no longer true.
It's awesome to see that Linux holds its own in the embedded market. Embedded manufacturers realize that their hardware is a means to an end, and by allowing developers the freedom to make their own decisions regarding OS they only widen their potential customer base. I only wish that PC hardware manufacturers felt the same way.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
The embedded world is also subject to moore's law. While 8 and 16 bit processors are still very dominant, 32 bit processors are rapidly being adopted. Combined with enough memory, linux is a very good choice for such systems. Since in many embedded devices, building the software is the critical path on the project, many embedded hardware vendors opt for 32 bit + linux rather than 16 bit and lots of development and licensing cost.
That's why basically all consumer electronics, mobile phones, etc. come with 32 bit processors and lots of memory. Mass produced electronics that go into kitchen appliances, cars, warches etc have a much smaller margins and for those things it is not (yet) economically feasible.
I read a paper from philips once describing the amount of memory in their television sets over the years. This was a paper from 96 I think and they were talking about 512kb. The observation they made was that this amount appeared to grow exponentially (up 64kb in the early nineties) growing to a predicted 4MB shortly after y2k. Assuming their prediction was accurate we are talking about embedded systems with between 4 an 32 MB for operating television sets right now. This is more than enough for running linux (although I'm not sure that Philips uses it).
Jilles