Former Red Hat executives are behind a commercial package management tool said to facilitate system modifications better than dpkg or rpm. The 2003 startup Specifix says its “Conary” tool enables even heavily modified systems to track upstream versions easily, and the company will market a version to embedded Linux developers. (more…)

EmergeCore has used Linux in a line of $1395-$2450 office servers for small-medium businesses (SMBs). The IT-100 and IT-500 are easy-to-use, Slackware-based, all-in-one network server appliances with low power requirements and several sophisticated networking options, including WAN cards and… (more…)

Occam Networks used embedded Linux in what it calls the first broadband loop carrier (BLC) device with a Gigabit Ethernet transport. The company says it chose Linux for its BLC 6000 due to driver quality. The BLC 6000 targets DSL, video, voice, and “triple play” service providers offering all three. (more…)

EmergeCore has used Linux in a line of $1395-$2450 office servers for small-medium businesses (SMBs). The IT-100 and IT-500 are touted as easy to use, Slackware-based, all-in-one networking and server appliances with low power requirements and support for WAN cards, 802.11g, multi-domain hosting, and other sophisticated networking capabilities. (more…)

Occam Networks used embedded Linux in what it calls the first broadband loop carrier (BLC) device with a Gigabit Ethernet transport. The company says it chose Linux for its BLC 6000 due to driver quality. The BLC 6000 targets DSL, video, voice, and “triple play” service providers offering all three. (more…)

CNET has posted an article discussing ARM's business model, licensing practices, and near-monopoly share of some embedded processor markets. Despite its size and power, the company is not perceived as a monopoly, according to the article, because of its cooperative business practices and English origins. (more…)

Hitachi semiconductor spinoff Renesas and NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest telecommunications company, will jointly develop a single-chip multiprocessor for mobile phones. The chip, expected in late 2006, will help save power in next-generation mobile phones — probably based on Linux — that will access the Internet at broadband speeds. (more…)

Fujitsu Siemens has launched a line of solid-state thin clients that use just 25 watts, or 80 percent less power than PCs. The Futro S clients run embedded Linux on Transmeta processors, are no larger than medium-sized books. (more…)

O'Reilly Developer Weblogs has published a brief article about using a USB “thumb” drive and a Knoppix Live CD to create a “ubiquitous computing” environment, a portable system the user can carry from computer to computer. The article also mentions several other ubiquitous computing projects. (more…)

The world's number two telecom RTOS vendor Enea has continued its adoption of Linux, adding a Linux port to the latest version of its real-time, fault-tolerant in-memory relational database management system (RDBMS). Polyhedra 5.1 also features an improved Java API. It targets data management applications such as process-control, telemetry, and remote monitoring, as well as telecommunications, data… (more…)

Access has revised its Java virtual machine (JVM), adding support for several current Java standards. “JV-Lite 2 CE Edition” runs on Linux and other embedded OSes, and targets PDAs, smartphones, set-top boxes, game consoles, and telematics applications. (more…)

Tom's Networking has published a thorough review of a small, inexpensive embedded Linux appliance from Linksys that could popularize network-attached storage (NAS). The $75 Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives (NSLU2) turns external USB drives into NAS devices with powerful automatic backup… (more…)

IBM has published the following technical articles, tutorials, and downloads on its developerWorks Website. They cover a range of interesting (though not necessarily embedded) technical topics. Some require free registration. Enjoy . . . (more…)

MontaVista has announced support for Freescale's latest mobile multimedia system-on-chip (SoC). MontaVista says that its Professional Edition (Pro) embedded Linux distribution supports the i.MX21 today, with Consumer Electronics Edition (CEE) support expected later this year. (more…)

Software development tools specialist Metrowerks announced a Linux board support package (BSP) for Freescale Semiconductor's soon-to-be-introduced i.MX21 multimedia applications processor. (more…)