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Linux Software

Linux in Web Appliances 22

Posted by CmdrTaco from the little-penguins-have-feelings-too dept.
Lawrence_Bird writes "Reuters put a piece out overnite commenting on the use of Linux in web appliances. It has a few quotes from Linus and comments specifically on TiVo Inc. " Comments on the RH IPO, Linux on Merced, and a few other bits.
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Linux in Web Appliances More

Linux in Web Appliances

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  • Let's face it, tradition media just don't get it.
  • Yes, its all good. Everyone is embracing Linux, it's small, it's stable, it's scalable, yadda yadda yadda. But doesn't anyone get this 'flavour of the month' kinda feeling? How many of these companies are doing it because they like Linux, rather than not liking Microsoft?

    Tho, again, it sounds like an interesting use of Linux. I've always wanted to log into my toaster.

  • Re:One to lead them all... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You mean Linus has never called you?? Why, it was only this morning that Linus baby nudged me awake and asked me to fix a couple of bugs in the kernel. He also sends me messages direct to my brain, I hear him al the time when i'm at work, surely i'm not the only one?? When Linus shouts jump, i say "How high?".
  • Maybe they should have someone who knows the subject write the article. Nah, that won't work.

  • This is interesting, although not new (I once read someone was porting the Linux kernel to run on both a Laser Jet III and Furby--probably neither is true, but both are interesting).

    It seems fairly obvious, though, once you learn a bit about what it takes to create an operating system, that it's easier to borrow ideas and--more importantly--implementations from somewhere else that to create them yourself from scratch. It seems only logical that the people who are creating embedded systems are better off using existing solutions to existing problems (provided they solve those problems) rather than create new solutions. So, articles like this are in some sense old news--they are telling us something we already know will happen, since, unlike most other kernels, the source code is entirely and freely available for perusal and borrowing.

    As far as Linux being the flavor of the month: Of course it is. At any given time the media has to have its darlings. But that doesn't change the fact that the Linux kernel is stable, has been in production for years, and has a long history of reliability behind it. What the last 6 months of media attention does buy for Linux is a mainstream acceptability which would otherwise have been very difficult to come by. How would people in corporate IT shops have come to find out about this "wonderful new operating system" if not from the media? This is a good thing--even if the media is over-hyping linux to the point where you roll your eyes at "Yet Another Linux Cover Article" on Generic Computer Users magazine.

    Seriously, though--a year ago, everyone that I knew who had heard of Linux was in academia. My old comrades from CS 101 were studying the Linux kernel years before I entered the corporate marketplace. When I set up my first Linux box here (November '97) nobody knew what they heck I was doing--"Hey, that's a weird DOS prompt"--and nobody was interested.

    The huge exposure is a good thing, of course; let the "flavor of the month" thing run its course, and in the end, the people who really Got It will still be using it, and the ones who latched on to the Linux Fad will meander on to the Next Big Thing (maybe Java again?).

    darren

  • Last I knew, support for turning off Caps Lock is included in Linux.
    --
  • Okay. So why does your toaster need a windowing system in the first place?

    I agree that a toaster with X would be a bad thing. If your toaster was misconfigured, it would hang and never eject the toast. The "Black Toast of Death".
    --
  • X10 is mianly for lights and other simple on/off devices...you can do high speed MPEG capture using X10 (i.e. digital VCRs)....besides X10 is very vulnerable to cracking/hijacking of signals etc. it uses no encryption and can easily be spoofed.
  • Very good idea. You should go tell that to the people who think they'll get an advantage out of embedding Windows 2000 in their copy machine.
    (funny... copy machines always worked fine without a gigabyte hard disk before.)
    --
  • Sometimes people spend so much time wondering what the policies are, that they forget to ask.

    TiVo will send ANYONE who requests our changes to the Linux modules a CD for a charge of $24.95.

    If you are intereseted, please send email to me.

    Regards,
    Richard Bullwinkle
    TiVo Webmaster
    webmaster@tivo.com
  • hmm..im concerned about that too.. what happens when someone embeds linux and doesnt release the code ? can we or the FSF sue ?
  • idle curiosity...but can we do it from the command line ? touch /proc/capslock or something ?? i'd love to be able to turn my caps/scroll/num locks on and off remotely...for some strange reason. :)

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