MontaVista to release adaptable Linux for mobile, embedded platforms

By John Cox, Network World, 06/03/09

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"If the market gives you lemons, make lemonade" is the thinking behind the newest version of MontaVista 6, a commercial Linux implementation for mobile and embedded devices.

Today, many chipmakers and device manufacturers pick a Linux distribution, or craft their own, cobble together bits and pieces of various other open source projects, and extensively customize it with new code, all to fit a specific CPU. It's a laborious process, and turns these vendors into operating system suppliers to themselves.

But they lack the resources to do high-quality, continuous software testing and quality control, write and maintain drivers and middleware, and continually optimize "their" Linux for the given chip architecture.

MontaVista 6, to be released in July, does away with those burdens, according to the software vendor. Faced with three main processor platforms, from Freescale, Intel and Texas Instruments (the "lemons" in this case), MontaVista created for each a chip-specific implementation of its commercial Linux software. At the same time, each new implementation (the “lemonade”) is compatible with the previous release of the chipmaker's Linux, and incorporates code from it as needed.

The result, say MontaVista executives: These vendors are able to quickly migrate with minimal disruption to a full, and fully supported, commercial Linux tailored to their chip's requirements.

In effect, MontaVista has created a system, dubbed the MontaVista Integration Platform (MIP) that lets them systematically adapt their core Linux distribution to different underlying chip architectures, and incorporate third-party code.

For each chip-specific MIP, MontaVista has created what it calls the Zone Content Server: a central online service where software engineers can find, track, and download every bit of the latest open source code they need for their requirements, instead of sorting through separate, and separately maintained open source project sites. An initial build of an embedded Linux typically can take 2,000 to 3,000 separate files, according to Brad Dixon, the vendor's director of product management.

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