| | Embedded Linux applications: An overview |
 | | Increasingly, these embedded systems need to be connected to some sort of network, and thus require a networking stack, which increases the complexity level and requires more memory and interfaces, as well as, you guessed it, the services of an operating system. |
 | | The one disadvantage to running Linux on an embedded system is that the Linux architecture provides real-time performance through the addition of real-time software modules that run in the kernel space, the portion of the operating system that implements the scheduling policy, hardware-interrupts exceptions and program execution. |
 | | Because Linux is openly and freely available in source form, many variations and configurations of Linux and its supporting software components have evolved to meet the diverse needs of the markets and applications to which Linux is being adapted. |
| www.ibm.com /developerworks/linux/library/l-embl.html (4346 words) |