Roll the muffled drums. Haul out the black crepe. Close the coffin on the full custom ASIC and send it to its reward. Never mind that the corpse still appears to be twitching. The ASIC is dead. Gone the way of the dinosaur. Well, maybe not exactly the dinosaur-more like the coelacanth. (more…)

San Jose, CA; Intel Developer Forum — Intel announced the 'Extended Wireless PC Initiative' which is described as “the first step of an initiative that is intended to aid distribution of digital media throughout the home.” The initiative provides several key building blocks and toolkits to the developer community, in an effort to speed the development of devices that can seamlessly distribute PC digital… (more…)

Introduction

Some time back, LinuxDevices.com invited me to write an article about how our company, Mind NV, has successfully become profitable while remaining a pure free and open source software based embedded development company (we primarily focus on Embedded Linux, eCos, and JVM development for R&D groups at large corporations). (more…)

Cal discusses mtrace, dmalloc and memwatch — three easy-to-use tools that find most application program errors. (more…)

IMDSes are especially useful for embedded development, where every saved process shrinks the footprint and the bottom line. (more…)

Abstract

Increasingly, software is going 'open source,' with increasingly good results. Linux, the most visible of open-source software, is rapidly gaining ground in both embedded and server software markets, and even begins to make inroads on the desktop. (more…)

Matthew R. Harris, CEO of Embedix, Inc. (Lineo), has written a suggested revision of the GNU General Public License. Note that it is not an official version of the GNU General Public License, and is published at this time for informational purposes only. Harris, a stong proponent of the GPL, believes that in its current form it is difficult to understand and contains a number of ambiguities. (more…)

Embedded Linux is revolutionizing the embedded systems software market. The advantages Linux offers relative to traditional proprietary embedded software solutions are tremendous. These advantages translate to significant savings in total cost of ownership and time to market for embedded developers and OEMs, and increased ability to highly differentiate products. (more…)

In the first of a series of articles on device-driver development, we'll start with how the kernel handles the system console and serial ports. (more…)

We've added an embedded Linux development section with in-depth information on device-driver coding and more that even a desktop developer can use. (more…)

The Bayonne Project makes running telephony software on any vendor's card possible.

Three years ago I came to realize that we had a serious need in free software. Although free software had expanded to fill almost every other void in the enterprise infrastructure, we had not addressed the needs of telecommunications. (more…)

Virtex-II Pro FPGA and MontaVista Linux provide a highly flexible and powerful solution for embedded system designers. (more…)

In this technical article, Matchbox project leader Matthew Allum introduces his creation: a small footprint window manager for PDAs and other resource- constrained embedded devices. Allum recalls why he decided to embark on the project, outlines its key objectives, describes its architecture and unique characteristics, and ponders its future . . . (more…)

Julian provides the technical and historical background of dsp_k, with a particular focus on the kernel. (more…)

i3 micro technology (Stockholm, Sweden) introduced the Mood Box at the CeBIT conference (Hannover, Germany) in March 2002. The device is a stylish 'next-generation set-top box' that is intended to fit the decor of homes, upscale hotels, and commercial settings — delivering IP-based live TV, video-on-demand, pay-per-view, music-on-demand, Internet browsing, email, and other interactive services and… (more…)