Linux is still a long way off dominating embedded, dpeending of course on what you mean by embedded. Most embedded designs still use inhouse RTOSs or no RTOS at all and most run on CPUs not supported by Linux or even uCLinux (the MMU-less version of Linux).
I think Linux is a long way off dominating the desktop, mainly because Linux systems are relatively difficult to work with (eg. installing a hardware driver for a camera etc is beyond the capability of Joe Sixpack). This is not a problem in more restrictive systems (eg. servers and embedded systems) where Joe Sixpack does not have to fiddle.
Embedding Linux is way easier and more productive than, say, Windows CE. I do development for both and after doing some Linux stuff, WinCE work is just so depressing.
Compare: change 1 line of kernel code and get running.
Linux: 9 seconds compile etc to build a new kernel image. 6 seconds ethernet download and boot. 15 seconds total.
WinCE: Build 10+ **minutes** to do a full build because the partial build does not work reliably. 3 **minutes** to ethernet download/boot.
Class: who's going to get more work done in a day?
I thnk mandrake could be OK if you use it out the box, but I had some probs with it when I wanted to add to it. I tried to add the Lego USB tower support, but building for Mandrake was not easy. The installation I had did not have kernel dev tools etc installed, so I could not build the Lego USB tower driver. Eventually I said phukkit and installed RH.
This makes me wonder whether it makes any sense for Joe Sixpack to use Linux. Kernel hackers yes, controlled corporate/school/other organisation desktops yes, but Joe Sixpack? Is is really feasable to expect home users to to have to install kernel hacking code etc to install basic support for their peripherals?
I doubt things have improved much energy-wise since Apollo days. Burning many tons of petroleum brought back about 200 pounds of moon rocks. Hey Man this He3 stuff better be powerful.
It depends on the type of flash, and the file systems involved. NOR flash is very slow to write so you'd be waiting for a long time to complete basic file operations. NAND flash is far faster to write, but needs a solid file system to make it reliable. Hint: Not FAT.
The write cycle limit (100k writes to block) is unlikely to be reached in a read product, when using a reasonable file system. eg. I did some stress testing recently that wrote over 130Gbytes of data to a NAND file system. This allocated over a million blocks, but since there are over a thousand blocks in the device, each block was only allocated a few times.
BTW: If you're interested in this sort of thing Google for YAFFS or JFFS2.
Uptime is definitely not a WinCE strength. Compare
One of the contributors over at The Register uses (or did) a Psion. He did an upgrade which required a reboot. Even though he'd had the device for years, and is tech savvy, he did not even know about the little recessed reset switch.
I recently spoke with someone doing fieldwork using an ipaq. They were working in streams etc so decided to use one of those waterproof pods to protect the device. Whenever the unit crashed they'd need to pop the ipaq out of the case to reboot it. Eventually this became such a chore that they tossed the waterproof pod and just took their chances with splashes etc.
I doubt some of of these are real products: Symbol PD7265 uses an Elan SC400 whish is obsolete. This product has been superceded by an ARM-based design. Intermec 5020. SH3? get real. Anything that is only SH3 is obsolete
Some products (eg the XPDA-9) must be real sincve they appear on the list more than once.
Many of these are more development/experimental devices than real products. Quite a few, eg. Cerfcube run WinCE or Linux.
What is most interesting with WinCE is to see the number of "design losses", rather than design wins. Many products went first generation on WinCE and then were redone on Linux. I have not heard of the reverse, but I expect there might be a few cases.
Bush going for the mouse vote?
on
Mice In Space
·
· Score: 1
It is plain to anyone with more than half a brain that Bush is trying to using space to take the focus off other issues (just like the 60s and Vietnam). But this thing with mice adds a new twist. I didn't think there were rodent lobbiests.
Unfortunately I think you're using a male biased view. ie "female geared" == weak and pink. I bet these "female geared" devices were designed by men for women. Females are far more practical than males, IMHO, when it comes to purchases. Your aunt has very practical selection criteria. She didn't choose based on blinking LEDs. Probably most power tool sales to men are not based on practical requirements, but on ego-enhancing ones.
How do you define "tech"? Pretty much everything in our lives and everything we buy is technology including clothing, food, medicines,... Without technology we'd be living in trees.
Even with a more restrictive definition of technology, I would not be suprised to learn that females dominate tech purchases. I'm in the electronics industry and I see more women moving into positions like manufacturing management, parts procurement etc which involve the spending of big dollars. In fact, thinking further, more than 50% of the people I know in these roles are women. And before someone starts getting silly, none of them are butch type with "Dad" tatoos.
Even on the home front, the lady of the house often has the veto power on the purchase of that new DVD home theatre etc, and she does not get the testosterone fuelled rush from all those blinking LEDs etc.
Tom Peters came up with some interesting numbers for the female buying power in what might be considered bloke domain. Women purchase well more than 50% of car stuff: cars, tyres, car services.
"Management Guru" Tom Peters said this and is right. Yet,... product design continues to be male-driven. Many electronic products are designed like F250 trucks instead of light SUVs. This makes them female-hostile (and often hostile for people with smaller hands etc).
If you have not done so yet, get a woman in your product design team.
Surely virtual worlds allow a great opportunity to experiment. If there were both censored and uncensored VWs it would be interestiing to see how the participants in each of these function and which last the longest. Do the worlds with anarchy provide "true freedom" (whatever that means)? Does order make for a more useful and functioning society?
You miss my point. Even if the Linux solution is better,faster ancd cheaper overall, people are still reluctant to pay for any Linux stuff because "It is supposed to be free isn't it? So why am I paying anything?".
I'm sure a Linux support contract would be lower cost than an Microsoft one or Sun, IBM,....
The biggest problem is that people get it into there minds that Linux==free, therefore they feel they're getting cheated when they spend any money on Linux-based services and software.
Darl has postponed this as long as possible. The international harvesting exercise is the last thing to do before the door of opportunity slams shut. Therefore, I believe, Darl knows that their whole effort is dying.
Rationale: They did not want to play the international arena too early since other countries (Europe etc) are a lot less tolerant of the kind of bullshit SCO is pulling. They stand the best chance of getting something out of the US courts where people slopping coffee on their laps and microwaving their poodles can make a fat pile of money. Getting laughed out of court in Europe (or even Nigeria:-)) will hurt their case in USA where the easy mone is. Conversely a win in US would bolster their case in other countries. So, if they're playing internationally it suggests they know the US game is over.
Juries are used to living with knives and 9mm semi-automatics, but the laser is new and sounds dangerous. Therefore you could quite easily sue someone over a laser injury and win. If knives or 9mm semi-automatics were just being released into the world now, there'd be huge legal problems.
Slashdot Mirror
How long before this is a real headline?
I think Linux is a long way off dominating the desktop, mainly because Linux systems are relatively difficult to work with (eg. installing a hardware driver for a camera etc is beyond the capability of Joe Sixpack). This is not a problem in more restrictive systems (eg. servers and embedded systems) where Joe Sixpack does not have to fiddle.
Embedding Linux is way easier and more productive than, say, Windows CE. I do development for both and after doing some Linux stuff, WinCE work is just so depressing.
Compare: change 1 line of kernel code and get running.
Linux: 9 seconds compile etc to build a new kernel image. 6 seconds ethernet download and boot. 15 seconds total.
WinCE: Build 10+ **minutes** to do a full build because the partial build does not work reliably. 3 **minutes** to ethernet download/boot.
Class: who's going to get more work done in a day?
actually, they only want $35 for embedded devices.
That would force people into paying OS developers which would be a nice thing :-).
This makes me wonder whether it makes any sense for Joe Sixpack to use Linux. Kernel hackers yes, controlled corporate/school/other organisation desktops yes, but Joe Sixpack? Is is really feasable to expect home users to to have to install kernel hacking code etc to install basic support for their peripherals?
I doubt things have improved much energy-wise since Apollo days. Burning many tons of petroleum brought back about 200 pounds of moon rocks. Hey Man this He3 stuff better be powerful.
The write cycle limit (100k writes to block) is unlikely to be reached in a read product, when using a reasonable file system. eg. I did some stress testing recently that wrote over 130Gbytes of data to a NAND file system. This allocated over a million blocks, but since there are over a thousand blocks in the device, each block was only allocated a few times.
BTW: If you're interested in this sort of thing Google for YAFFS or JFFS2.
One of the contributors over at The Register uses (or did) a Psion. He did an upgrade which required a reboot. Even though he'd had the device for years, and is tech savvy, he did not even know about the little recessed reset switch.
I recently spoke with someone doing fieldwork using an ipaq. They were working in streams etc so decided to use one of those waterproof pods to protect the device. Whenever the unit crashed they'd need to pop the ipaq out of the case to reboot it. Eventually this became such a chore that they tossed the waterproof pod and just took their chances with splashes etc.
MS are throwing money at WinCE. Their revenues are only half their expenses. Still, it is not apparent that they are really growing in these markets.
here
Some products (eg the XPDA-9) must be real sincve they appear on the list more than once.
Many of these are more development/experimental devices than real products. Quite a few, eg. Cerfcube run WinCE or Linux.
What is most interesting with WinCE is to see the number of "design losses", rather than design wins. Many products went first generation on WinCE and then were redone on Linux. I have not heard of the reverse, but I expect there might be a few cases.
I hope Darl knows better circus tricks than this!
Unfortunately I think you're using a male biased view. ie "female geared" == weak and pink. I bet these "female geared" devices were designed by men for women. Females are far more practical than males, IMHO, when it comes to purchases. Your aunt has very practical selection criteria. She didn't choose based on blinking LEDs. Probably most power tool sales to men are not based on practical requirements, but on ego-enhancing ones.
Even with a more restrictive definition of technology, I would not be suprised to learn that females dominate tech purchases. I'm in the electronics industry and I see more women moving into positions like manufacturing management, parts procurement etc which involve the spending of big dollars. In fact, thinking further, more than 50% of the people I know in these roles are women. And before someone starts getting silly, none of them are butch type with "Dad" tatoos.
Even on the home front, the lady of the house often has the veto power on the purchase of that new DVD home theatre etc, and she does not get the testosterone fuelled rush from all those blinking LEDs etc.
Tom Peters came up with some interesting numbers for the female buying power in what might be considered bloke domain. Women purchase well more than 50% of car stuff: cars, tyres, car services.
If you have not done so yet, get a woman in your product design team.
Surely virtual worlds allow a great opportunity to experiment. If there were both censored and uncensored VWs it would be interestiing to see how the participants in each of these function and which last the longest. Do the worlds with anarchy provide "true freedom" (whatever that means)? Does order make for a more useful and functioning society?
You miss my point. Even if the Linux solution is better,faster ancd cheaper overall, people are still reluctant to pay for any Linux stuff because "It is supposed to be free isn't it? So why am I paying anything?".
I was hoping to buy another Mindstoms on a shelf-clearance special.
The biggest problem is that people get it into there minds that Linux==free, therefore they feel they're getting cheated when they spend any money on Linux-based services and software.
A solar Tshirt, bikini or whatever might be a far better idea.
Rationale: They did not want to play the international arena too early since other countries (Europe etc) are a lot less tolerant of the kind of bullshit SCO is pulling. They stand the best chance of getting something out of the US courts where people slopping coffee on their laps and microwaving their poodles can make a fat pile of money. Getting laughed out of court in Europe (or even Nigeria :-)) will hurt their case in USA where the easy mone is. Conversely a win in US would bolster their case in other countries. So, if they're playing internationally it suggests they know the US game is over.
C: int i;
Translated: "We sumbit that there is an integer stoage of variable value designated the identifying symbol of 'i'. "
Yup, I can see how one or two C snippets could easily run 60 pages.
Juries are used to living with knives and 9mm semi-automatics, but the laser is new and sounds dangerous. Therefore you could quite easily sue someone over a laser injury and win. If knives or 9mm semi-automatics were just being released into the world now, there'd be huge legal problems.