Journalist Jason Compton writes, at OpenSource IT, about the rapid growth of interest in Linux within the enormous — and enormously diverse — embedded devices market. Compton writes . . .

Need an embedded operating system? Get a long notepad and a pot of coffee, because there are literally hundreds to choose from. Custom microkernels, Unix look-alikes … there's even a couple of embeddable MS-DOS clones out there. Microsoft has tried twice to bring order and a dominant player to the market–first with the marginally successful Windows CE, then with Embedded Windows NT.

But it may actually be Linux that ascends to the top of the heap in the $3.5 billion-per-year market for embedded system development tools. Enthusiasm for embedded Linux systems has grown dramatically over the past two years–even Linus Torvalds has gone on the record to say that it should be a priority for the open source OS.

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