LinuxWorld continued
NexCom -- showed a number of embedded and industrially oriented single board computers in a variety of popular form-factors, large and small. NexCom's products are now, apparently, supported under Linux.
OnCore Systems -- demonstrated OnCore Linux for Real-Time, a real-time platform which can host multiple copies of Linux in a "hard real-time" system environment.
PEP Modular Computers -- showed their 3U and 6U CompactPCI boards and systems which are now, apparently, supported under Linux. These kinds of products are used in high reliability systems for telecom and Internet infrastructure, industrial control, military, and medical applications.
Portwell -- showed a number of embedded and industrially oriented single board computers in EBX and other embedded and industrial form-factors. Portwell's products are now, apparently, supported under Linux.
Red Hat -- showcased three examples of embedded technologies . . .
- Century Software occupied a pedestal in the booth and showcased Microwindows, ViewML, and their PDA applications toolkit (these are all discussed above)
- The Red Hat Embedded Linux Development Kit was demonstrated running on a Motorola MBX860 EBX form-factor single board computer.
- uClinux and eCos were shown running on a NetSilicon NET+Lx reference design system.
Sun Microsystems -- showed several demonstrations of the J2ME Java for embedded devices, which supports Embedded Linux based systems. Hardware platforms included the Compaq iPAQ PDA and an Arcom embedded Linux reference platform. The J2ME occupies between 2 and 4 MB of memory space. Wireless 802.11 technology was also demonstrated on the iPAQ embedded Linux system.
TimeSys -- showed five demos of real-time Linux that demonstrated the quality-of-service (QoS) and real-time capabilities of TimeSys' Linux/RT operating system . . .
- an Embedded Planet PowerPC 860 board running TimeSys Linux/RT with TimeTrace being used for dynamic visualization of system events and context switches
- JTime, the TimeSys real-time Java virtual machine, running on top of TimeSys Linux/RT, controlled a small robot via a wireless serial connection
- a StrongArm-based Corel NetWinder system demonstrated Linux/RT's quality-of-service (QoS) capabilities, through the reservation of computation time on behalf of two chess programs
- the QoS capabilities of Linux/RT were also demonstrated on a desktop system, by assigning network and CPU reservations for video and audio conferencing software, demonstrating the capability to maintain acceptable live audio/video performance despite heavy system loading
- Quake III was shown running on a Linux desktop with CPU reservation controlled by a unique "QoS knob" that altered the QoS setting -- you could turn the knob clockwise/counterclockwise and watch the game's performance get better/worse right before your eyes!
Trolltech -- demonstrated Qt/Embedded and the Qt Palmtop Environment (QPE) running on an Compaq iPAQ PDA. They were also giving away free floppies containing a PC-bootable Embedded Linux system consisting of: Qt/Embedded, PIM applications (Date Book, Address Book, Text Editor, File Browser, etc.), and games (Mine Sweep, Tetrix, Solitaire). The floppy image is downloadable from Trolltech's website.
Viosoft -- showed their embedded Linux cross-platform SDK for RISC platforms, including MIPS, ARM/Strong/ARM, and PowerPC. They also demonstrated Arriba!, a Java-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with a windows-style graphical debugger.
ZF Linux Devices -- showcased support for their MachZ system-on-chip, including: the tiny MachZ demo board plus the MachZ Integrated Development System, a MachZ-based Internet Appliance reference design, and Tri-M's MachZ-based PC/104 form-factor SBC that's featured in Embedded Linux Journal's design contest.
As you can see, there were lots of embedded products and demonstrations at LinuxWorld -- many more than at the previous shows. At the rate Linux is penetrating the embedded market, we can expect to see an even greater amount of Embedded Linux activity this year.
