Bloomfield, NJ — (press release excerpt) — TUXIA today announced the release of a professional development toolkit, TUXIA Synthesis Environment (TSE) 3.0, to enable easy, full-scale customization of TUXIA's TASTE (TUXIA Appliance Synthesis Technology), a suite of embedded Linux software for Internet appliances and thin client devices.

TSE provides original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), independent software vendors (ISVs), systems integrators (SIs) and value-added resellers (VARs) with a versatile builder kit for TASTE that reduces development time and costs, and enables Internet appliances and thin client devices to be brought to market more quickly.

The release of TSE follows the release of TASTE in April, and offers a range of features to allow manufacturers and developers to easily embed open source components, in-house developed software and third-party applications in TASTE. Core features of TSE include an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that does not require extensive Linux development skills, a driver for TASTE's flash memory components that includes a highly efficient file compression process, and a sample configuration of the TASTE file system that includes a base system with low memory requirements.

Additional TSE features include customizable window managers, Chinese and Japanese versions, remote management and administration utilities, localized keyboard mapping in TUXIA's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client, which provides access to Microsoft Windows 2000 and NT terminal services, and BIOS (basic input/output system) extensions, which enable the embedded Linux system to run on various flash hardware architectures.

TSE is currently being used by two semiconductor companies to customize TASTE applications. National Semiconductor, a supplier of high technology integrated circuits and a TUXIA partner, uses TASTE to provide a Linux-based operating system for National Semiconductor's Geode family of high-performance, low-power consumption integrated processors. M-Systems, a manufacturer of electronic disks that provide data storage based on flash memory and also a TUXIA partner, integrates TASTE on its DiskOnChip flash disk so that Internet appliances running TASTE can operate without conventional rotating media, such as hard disks.

TUXIA's TASTE is based on the current Linux kernel 2.4 and consists of an embedded operating system, an embedded Mozilla browser called Nanozilla, and a full complement of plug-ins and other functionalities that are configured according to the use of an Internet appliance. Using block compression technology, TUXIA has engineered TASTE to be the smallest memory footprint of any media-rich embedded Linux system available today, which yields dramatic savings for device manufacturers.

 
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