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News and Editorials

Linux for phones and other toys

Embedded Linux is widely used in all sorts of gadgets. Tiny computers running tiny versions of Linux can be found in all sorts of applications from cars to coffee pots. Unlike a desktop computer, most users never interact directly with the computer embedded in a device, or care about what operating system is making it all work. Of course, LWN readers are more likely to care about such things than the average user.

There are over two dozen embedded distributions in the Embedded Section of the LWN Distributions List. At least a dozen more can be found scattered through other sections of the list. A testament to the volume of embedded distributions, and the need the get the LWN Distribution list into a real database so that embedded distributions, PDA distributions, firewall/VPN distributions, etc. can be found in all appropriate categories. The point is, there are many embedded Linux distributions that are rarely covered outside of their slot in the list, and probably many more that never made it to list. When we do cover them, its because some new gadget has been released -- and LWN runs a press release about the gadget while the underlying distribution gets at most a brief mention.

However, since LWN no longer has a Commerce page and these press releases caught our eye, we have a couple of embedded distributions to talk about today. The first press release is from Eforce Holdings Limited, Culturecom Holdings Limited, and Mobile Telecom Network Holdings Limited, who have jointly introduced the Chinese 2000 Mobile Linux Operating System for mobile devices.

Chinese 2000 Mobile, may or may not be related to a long time member of the LWN list Chinese 2000 Linux (website in Chinese), which appears to be a desktop and server distribution.

The next announcement comes from MontaVista Software and Texas Instruments, who are working together to provide an embedded Linux platform for OMAP application processors to target 2.5G and 3G handsets and other applications. "With the industry-leading MontaVista Linux embedded operating system and cross-development platform, embedded application developers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will be able to quickly create OMAP processor-based, multimedia-enhanced applications for advanced wireless devices, telematics, biometrics, enhanced gaming and specialized personal digital assistants (PDAs)."

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Distribution News

Debian GNU/Linux

The Debian Weekly News for December 10, 2002 is available. This week covers: Changing the Bug Submitter Address; Additional TuxRacer Courses; Writing Packages Descriptions; and much more.

Martin Schulze provides a status report for Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r1 (woody update).

Colin Watson reports that the old close/reopen sequence for changing the submitter address on a bugs.debian.org bug report is now deprecated, since it had unwanted effects on merged bugs.

Tollef Fog Heen announced the first public alpha of debian-installer, the next-generation installation system for Debian. Debian-installer is modeled after some of the points which make Debian so hugely successful: good configuration management (debconf, in a C reimplementation), good package management (through anna, whose acronym expands to anna's not nearly apt) and other custom, sized-down versions of the standard Debian tools like dpkg.

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Mandrake Linux

A problem exists with devfsd handling of ida devices (aka compaq smart array). The system will not boot if "devfs=mount" is passed to the kernel on the boot loaded command line. The system will boot, however, if "devfs=nomount" is passed to the kernel. Devfsd would incorrectly set the old ida compatibility links to device entries in /dev. This new package corrects this problem.

A bug in the arts spec removes /usr/lib/qt3/lib from /etc/ld.so.conf upon removal (which can be invoked during an upgrade as well). This update fixes the problem.

Arkeia Corporation announced that its enterprise backup solution is now included with the new Mandrake Linux 9.0 software package.

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Minor distribution updates

Astaro Security Linux

Astaro Security Linux has released beta v3.318 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This is the first BETA for the upcoming version of Astaro Security Linux 4.0. There are lot of new features, such as VLAN, WLAN, PPPoA, POP3 proxy with virus protection, LDAP authentication, PPTP with radius, enhanced IPSec, and much more."

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floppyfw

floppyfw has released stable version 1.0.15 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: The kernel was updated to version 2.2.23."

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KNOPPIX

KNOPPIX has released v3.1-07-12-2002 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This version includes a rewrite of partition and filesystem detection, Spanish translations for scripts, automatic desktop icons for USB storage devices, the Linux kernel 2.4.20 with XFS and JFS, updates to hwdata, a Prism2 module, PCMCIA workarounds for Dell notebooks, DRI support for more graphic cards (esp. ATI, tested with chromium), and lots of small fixes and updates."

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Mindi Linux

Mindi Linux has released v0.80 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: On-screen progress reporting is more informative. LVM and RAID partition layouts are better supported. DevFS and Compaq Proliant support has been improved."

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RxLinux

RxLinux has released v1.2.0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: Rxlinux now support 3 types of software packages: iso, ziso, and tgz (iso9660 filesystem, compressed iso9660 filesystem, and regular tar.gz, respectively). Iso and ziso can be mounted directly from the cdrom. Software packages can also be deployed on the hard drive or in ramdisk. The rxmaster configuration tool as been redesigned for more simplicity and functionality."

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uClinux

uClinux has released v2.4.20-uc0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: Merging in the latest kernel updates from 2.4.20."

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Warewulf

Warewulf has released v1.6 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This is a development release that incorporates a lot of changes that bring Warewulf in the direction that it needs to be going. The warewulf-init init.d script has been built to set up the node environment and hardware/drivers. RPMs have been configured to be 4 packages (warewulf, warewulf-node, warewulf-nodefs, and warewulf-isokit). The ability to try to mount any local node partitions at node boot has been added."

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Distribution reviews

Lindows 3.0 More Stable (ExtremeTech)

ExtremeTech reviews Lindows 3.0. "This release promises a number of tweaks and additions to Lindows. The Lindows developers have focused on stability and they've addressed the "run as root" problem we highlighted in our earlier review by letting you add additional users, with different permission levels."

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Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
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