Embedded linux status

Here is an outline for a presentation on the status of embedded Linux:

This is essentially User:Tim Bird's private collection of interesting notes about the status of embedded Linux. It tends to get updated right before a Linux conference.

NEWS: Tim Bird's Status of Embedded Linux (October 2009) presentation, which he delivered at the Japan Linux Symposium, is now available.

Process for adding information

Anyone can add information to this page. I used to maintain the information at the Technology Watch List, but the table format there is a bit constrictive. (It would be nice if MediaWiki had a table editor!!)

Since I have to form this stuff into a "State of Embedded Linux" presentation several times a year, keeping the information in wiki outline format is convenient for me. It's easier to put directly into a presentation.

Please place information in bullet form, with a link to a supporting article, in the appropriate sub-section below.

Page History

I'll let MediaWiki store historical versions of this page. If you want to see what the hot issues were from a last year or a few years ago, please see look at the page history. (Although, updates of this page have historically been a bit spotty).

Uncategorized info

This is where I put stuff I haven't had time to analyze or sort into the appropriate category:

April 2011

• http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/OIN-announces-new-members/?kc=LNXDEVNL042011 - OIN grows 28%
• Intel working on supporting Android 3.0, according to Paul Ottellini
  • Android in focus at Intel - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20055868-64.html
• Mobile patent lawsuit cheatsheet - http://technologizer.com/2011/04/19/mobile-lawsuits/
• Linus fed up with ARM sub-architecture chaos
  • Linaro organizing group to help resolve issues (possibly hire sub-arch coordinator)

February 2010

Android

• Dalvik ported to Meego - myriad Group AG announced Myriad Alien Dalvik, for running Android apps on other Linux platforms
  • See http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Myriad-Group-Myriad-Alien-Dalvik/?kc=LNXDEVNL020911
• IcedRobot implementation of Android (using OpenJDK)
• Honycomb released

Other

• CONFIG_PM being eliminated - improved PM configuration
• ftrace using -mfentry (feb 9, 2011 lkml, steve rostedt)

April 2010

• HP buys Palm - now owns Webos
• Japanese companies (with LIMO) announce new mobile stack - http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Consortium-from-NTT-DoCoMo-Renesas-Fujitsu-NEC-Panasonic-and-Sharp/?kc=LNXDEVNL042810

Previous to April 2010

• SystemTap 1.0 now includes support for cross-compilation.
• Patches for dynamic printks
• writing to /dev/kmsg to generate a printk (not new, but I just discovered it)
• LZO kernel compression is in 2.6.33
• Arjan van de Ven's timer-slack code - http://lwn.net/Articles/369361/

Bootup Time

• pre-linking
• XIP
• (see filesystem work)
• KFT
• embedded bootchart

File Systems

• YAFFS2
• LogFS
• Squashfs
  • Phillip working on LZMA (Oct 2009)
  • Matthew Creech reported that LZMA compression was 21% better than zlib compression for him

Middleware

• DLNA summit

Distributions

• OpenEmbedded
• Embedded Debian
• PokyLinux
• Ubuntu Mobile

Moblin

• Moblin 2.0 released
  • what's new in it?

Android

• Android 2.0 (Eclair)
  • Android 2.0 SDK released (oct 2009)
  • Motorola Droid may be first phone with this release
  • what's new??

Industry organizations or projects

• LiMo
• CELF
  • CELF projects
• Linux Foundation
  • JLS was a success (oct 2009)

Embedded Linux usage

• Maybe as high as 32% market share in MIDs
  • http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/ABI-netbook-study/?kc=LNXDEVNL110409