Behind The Coolest Gadgets - Linux or Windows?

An anonymous reader submits "Sister sites LinuxDevices and WindowsForDevices have kicked off what they're calling the Great Embedded Device Smack-Down, to see whether Linux or Windows Embedded powers the best and coolest devices. The Smackdown highlights more than 350 gadgets in nine categories, along with some entertaining "pre-game commentary" featuring the latest market share figures for the two OSes and a whacky clipart image of Stone Cold Bill Gates taking on The Tux."

Comments

Love our Cyclades console port servers

[csoto]

Our old TS models are great, but the new ACS are even better. Darn easy to use, and rock solid.

They run Linux, BTW...

How could they miss the HomePod?

[YetAnotherName]

MacSense makes the "iPod for the home", in the form of their HomePod. It doesn't run MacOS; it runs Linux and Java (J9).

More info at GlooLabs.

Sharp Zaurus?

[Spyro VII]

Well, I haven't read the article yet (and by the looks of things I won't be doing it either), but offhand the only thing that I have to say is that I've never seen a Pocket PC that can stack up to the Zaurus line of handhelds made by Sharp, on either the coolness factor or the gadget factor.

It will be interesting seeing how they weighed the Pocket PC PDAs against the Linux ones, and how the fact that a number of iPaqs can be ran with either PPC or some kind of Linux.

Re:Sharp Zaurus?

[TrevorDoom]

As I've owned a Zaurus 5500, Tungsten T3, and currently own a HP iPAQ 4155, I definately have to give the "coolness," "gadget," and "power" to the iPAQ hands down.

User replaceable battery (one of the issues with the Tungsten), 400 MHz XScale processor (whole lot more powerful than the 5500), integrated Bluetooth (more than the Zaurus has) and WiFi (more than the T3 has) and with a couple of third-party apps to "fix" the annoying things about the Pocket PC operating system I'm most definately in love with this iPAQ...

I'm sorry, the handwriting recognition on the Zaurus sucks (Decuma OnSpot for PocketPC, OTOH is able to decypher my hardly intelligable chicken-scratch) and my fingers are fat enough that trying to use the thumb keyboard is annoying at best. WiFi, while not essential in a PDA, is damn nice (access to the fileshares on the Windows network at work while doing things where a laptop isn't readily accessable but I'm in WiFi range is schweet) and gives me the ability to use Pocket Putty to ssh into my fileserver at home while sitting on the couch.

The Zaurus has a cool "geek" factor, but really, I got tired of the shitty quality of the PIM apps and fighting with the device to try and get it to sync got old after about 3 weeks.

Well, looking at those numbers again....

[carlmenezes]

Looking at the direction mobile phones are moving, I think it's a pretty good possibility that the the PDA, handhelds and Audio/Video Devices of the future will essentially be mobiles phones with these features.

Adding up the counts in those categories we have :

Linux : 38+17+36 = 91
Windows: 74+24+8 = 106

If you add in the "other" category, you have :

Linux : 91+38=134
Windows:106+22=128

Either way, it's really close, except for one thing - the future trend and the contributions made back to the OSS community as a result of the devices that use Linux.

The thing is, as more of these devices are released, more code and/or documentation and bugfixes will be released by companies back to the OSS community because they will be using many OSS tools in the development of these products, improving them if necessary in the process and finally releasing some of the improvements to the OSS community.

This will make it easier for more companies to re-use OSS tools and software and we have a potential cascade effect that could create a very wide development base for embedded Linux devices.

On the windows side, the situation is not the same - companies usually don't release their any portion of their code into a "public pool" for use by the community.

This essentially means, that while the numbers are an even split now, it looks like the Linux numbers will grow faster than the Windows numbers.

Now, also remember that with the devices comes whatever the devices are connected to - namely PCs, Macs and the like. Therefore, at the very minimum, this could lead to a much better awareness of the Linux OS. What follows awareness is usually curiosity - and since Linux is a quality product, curiosity can only be a good thing.

Therefore, I'd just say that although the numbers are an even split now, they actually represent the success of Linux in the embedded devices market and given time, this will seep into the desktop and that will be a good thing. Competition always is.