MontaVista updating Linux line

Man, it seems like embedded Linux is quickly catching up to server and desktop Linux. As a matter of fact, if things keep going at this pace…we may see embedded Linux surpass the other forms of Linux.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company sells three versions of Linux–the Carrier Grade Edition for telecommunications equipment, Mobilinux for mobile phones and the Professional Edition for consumer electronics products and other devices. On Monday, MontaVista announced that Mobilinux 4.0 is due to ship this quarter and will be equipped with the more modern version 2.6 of the Linux kernel.

The new version is faster, gets “real-time” support that lets devices respond quickly to high-priority tasks, and will support more processor architectures, said Peder Ulander, vice president of marketing. It also can enable a device to boot up in less than a second and consume less battery power.

Next up with 2.6 support is the carrier-grade product, due to be announced May 16, a few weeks before the Supercomm trade show in June. New kernel features of interest to that market include support for IPv6–a new generation of the Internet Protocol that supports vastly more devices than the current IPv4–and an encryption standard called IPsec, Ulander said. [Read the rest]