Embedded developer Jerry Epplin takes a look at Transmeta's newly unveiled “Midori Linux Project” and offers this perspective. Epplin writes . . .

Desktop and server users of Linux have long had a wide variety of distributions from which to choose, so you haven't needed to be an expert on the use of GNU tools to install Linux on those kinds of computer. But until about a year ago, if you wanted to embed Linux there wasn't much to do except create your own distribution. So the process of tailoring Linux for operation on an embedded system is still somewhat of a black art. The procedure goes something like this . . .

• Get a Linux kernel and C library.
  
• Add an init system and various other tools.
  
• Add your application.
  
• Build it all together into an image to be programmed into the device.
  
• Test.

If you forgot some necessary components, add them. If you included some unnecessary components resulting in too large a system image, remove them. Repeat these steps until the system is satisfactory.

Such a process is hardly an efficient one for an embedded system designer who is not also an expert on Linux and the GNU tools. Of course, several commercial products for configuring an embedded Linux system are available, but there are few 100% free systems consistent with the spirit of Linux. This is why Transmeta's new Midori Linux is an encouraging development . . .

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