Linux is the Unix-like open source computer operating system created by Finnish enthusiast Linus Torvalds (hence its name). While his team creates the kernel of the OS, an ever-growing band of Linux enthusiasts and businesses create the applications that utilize Linux, such is the free distribution nature of the project. Increasingly popular as a server-side alternative to Windows, Linux runs under logical partitioning (LPAR).

The Linux operating system has been available for years for servers and desktops, and has continued to gain market share in both of these computing segments, helping to drive this growth and lend credibility to Linux are well established companies such as IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, and Oracle. At a time when distributed architectures are beginning to emerge, Linux should be considered for its ability to “scale out” in a horizontal fashion.

“Scale up remains very important, but that is not where the big growth is. I don’t see a large, incremental market opportunity for a relatively new operating system like Linux there. There are already too many established players there”, said Gordon Haff, senior analyst at Illuminata in Nashua, N.H.

Mainframes are generally considered to be scalable machines; they are the key to the argument. Haff stated the contrary, stating that mainframes running Linux can easily scale out as distributed environment.

Linux’s capability to continue scaling up the enterprise is virtually assured with facilities such as the Open Source Development Lab, Beaverton, Ore., where open source developers’ access to iron servers.

IMB, HP, NEC, and Intel, all have vested interest in seeing Linux scaling up to support more and more processors. The image of Linux as a scale-up operating system will get a boost soon; the Kernel is expected to scale significantly better than in the past, and it will handle more memory, more efficiently, according to Linux inventor Linus Torvalds.

Linux, originally developed for the desktop and adapted for servers, is now making in-roads into the highly fragmented embedded market, too. Advanced in desktop Linux are developing along two trend lines: one for adoption and the other for innovation.

LynuxWorks was selected as embedded operating system vendor for army’s future combat system program; it will be used to meet the performance and reliability needs of the family of advanced, networked air and ground based military systems for use by the Army’s future force. A Linux compatible, open standards operating system is required to meet the Army’s needs for real time information and safety criticality.

Some analysts forecast that now that Linux has surpassed Apple’s market share, it will take a 6% share over the next two years. Some observers now believe the open source OS’s future is to serve as a distributed, network -based system.

Telecom/datacom will remain the largest consuming market for embedded Linux software development solutions. The list, which shows leading vertical markets and applications for embedded Linux software development tools and operating systems, contains the present and future domains:

1. Telecom/datacom
2. Consumer electronics
3. Industrial automation
4. Retail automation
5. Office automation
6. Military/aerospace
7. Automotive
8. Information automation
9. Medical

At the time when distributed architectures such as those proposed by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems are beginning to emerge, Linux should be considered for its ability to scale out in a horizontal fashion.  The key is mainframes, which are generally considered to be scalable machines.

The end of the world is near. At last that of the UNIX world. That’s the prediction of Donald Feinberg, vice-president of Gartner.  Linux is coming, UNIX is dead.” But there is no need to panic. Not just yet. The end is not going to come over night or even in next week or year, but it is certain, or as he puts it, “an absolute”.

The complete UNIX phase – out may take 10 – 15 years, but companies are going to start building / developing applications around Linux as early as 2010, Mr. Feinberg said.

“Linux and Windows will be the only two operating systems left in five years, “he told a super session audience at “The Annual Teradata Partners User Group Conference and Expo here. Talking about the future of data warehousing, he said that relational database management system (RDBMS) software would keep driving changes in data warehousing.

Feinberg debunks the term business intelligence. For him business activity model (BAM) will enable real time access to critical data including supplementary information to improve efficiency of the business.

The model leverages cutting edge IT to record significant events and alert companies about them more quickly. For example, he cited the case of a driver approaching a toll bridge.“Not only can his toll charge be taken from his credit card but his insurance, driving license and a police scan done for stolen cars simultaneously, and in real-time too. Or he could be alerted that there is a traffic jam ahead and should take a particular route to get to his destination”, Mr. Feinberg said.

A key area of advancement in open source is visual. As digital converge comes to fruition, the move toward an open environment for entertainment took a major leap when Sun Microsystems released Project Looking Glass under GPL. Email functionality is another subject to discuss: this will be the most significant factor governing the take-up of Linux on the desktop, according to a study published by the Open Source Development Labs.  The lack of a powerful email application could hinder the adoption of Linux on the desktop.

Without quality email applications, Linux on the desktop was not a feasible alternative for most users as email was rated the most important application regardless of platform.

The message is clear: application vendors must focus on developing a quality email application for the Linux desktop. There are some groupware clients for Linux that provide email, calendaring, tasks and contact management functionality.

Mozilla developers are already addressing this issue, with a project to integrate its calendar application Sunbird with its email application Thunderbird. Sunbird has been available as a separate extension for Firefox and Thunderbird for a while, but there’s been little integration between calendar and email functionality.

Licensing costs and total cost of ownership were the most popular reasons given for deploying desktop Linux, while few users are considering security as factor.

But Linux is getting more and more attractive, because the speed of development is getting so rapid … It is so hard to get excited for each upcoming release, keep the system completely up to date, and even remember what the current version of the favorite distributions are.

It is possible to contemplate, now, the coming exponential proliferation of smart devices using Java and Linux. This trend is fueled by powerful and highly integrated system – on chip processors, coupled with large-capacity systems and storage memories (both disk and silicon), and empowered by wired and wireless communications interfaces (IrDA, Ethernet, Blue Tooth, 802.11).

As the boundaries of the traditional computing paradigm blur and a new reality based on distributed, interconnected, pervasive computing devices dawns, a few important attributes of the coming era draw into focus:

- The number of smart devices (products having embedded operating systems inside) will grow in a spectacular manner, reaching number in the billions.

- The choice of CPU will be more a matter of cost than architecture or technology.

- Most devices will have connectivity, whether wired or wireless.

- Most devices will have specific rather than general-purpose functionality, so their application software will be defined by their manufacturers, rather than loaded by their users.

- Almost all devices will have the ability to be upgraded or repaired remotely, by downloading new firmware or software.

It looks like most computing devices in this new era will not PCs. Instead, they will be smart appliances of various shapes and capabilities, used for information, entertainment, control and other purposes. Think of things like smart wristwatches, having PIM functions and built-in mobile phone. There are also advanced PDAs / cell phones, audio/video systems, automobile infotronics, audio/video systems, smart kitchen appliances and PC-like desktop terminals. The list can continue…

This is a very fertile field for Linux. As the variety and number of devices with embedded intelligence grows exponentially, the need to minimize costs and maximize specialization increases correspondingly. Embedded Linux becomes a highly desirable technology for the operating system due to its scalability, configurability and affordability.

It is worth noting that until recently, the cost penalty associated with the CPU and memory resources necessary to run Linux had been a somewhat limiting factor, relative to using it in cost-sensitive devices. The baseline needs of embedding Linux 2MB Flash and 4MB RAM memory and a moderate speed processor have become reasonably inexpensive, thanks in large measure to Moore’s Law.

Moore’s law is the empirical observation in 1965 that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost, doubles every 18 months. It is attributed to Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder of Intel. Gordon Moore’s observation was not named a “law” by Moore himself, but by the Caltech professor, VLSI pioneer, and entrepreneur Carver Mead.

Another important challenge in this new era in which we’ll be surrounded by billions of increasingly intelligent devices, all communicating with one another, is the obvious need to simplify and quicken the process of application development, deployment and maintenance. In this regard, Java appears postured to play an increasingly significant role.

Java was initially developed to serve as an embedded operating system within smart devices, but ended up providing a convenient means to enable moving applications around among computing devices, propelled to this position by the dramatic emergence of the Web.

Despite its early failure as an embedded operating system, Java is showing promise in the role of providing a device independent application platform, provides the benefit of masking the unique aspects of the underlying device and providing an array of services beyond those offered by the embedded operating systems.

One interesting example of a product based on a combination of embedded Java + Linux is a consumer entertainment system that was recently announced by Hewlett-Packard.