(PR excerpt) — The OpenBrick Community has introduced a new Open Source / Free Software program called Umigumi, which enables easy reconfiguration of embedded platforms or even standard PCs in just a few seconds, changing them into various types of appliances such as routers, firewalls, VPNs, OGG players, print servers.

Although Umigumi was designed for use on the OpenBrick platforms, it can easily be extended to support other embedded hardware platforms running Open Source operating systems and is expected to become a standard for easy flash memory installers and for Linux-based appliances.

Basically, Umigami creates a bootable CompactFlash or USB Flash card. Once the card is inserted in the OpenBrick, the OpenBrick gets automatically reconfigured. Umigumi turns the OpenBrick into a chameleon appliance, allowing it to change its identity or to acquire additional capabilities. For example, the Embedded Linux Consortium Platform Specification (ELCPS) specifies three system environments: Minimal, Intermediate, and Full, and Umigumi can be used to change the OpenBrick's environment, among these options. It can also be used to add future capabilities, such as real-time.

Umigumi has many potential applications aside from on the OpenBrick platform. In the future, Umigumi is expected to support additional embedded platforms based on other CPU architectures, including Motorola 68K, Sun Sparc, PowerPC, StrongARM/Xscale, Mips/Mipsel, and Hitachi Super-H. Umigumi can also be used to install USB Flash cards on standard PCs.

Umigumi can be downloaded on the umigumi.org website.

 
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