Caldera Division Re-naming & Targeting Set-Top

Matt Levine writes to us with the news that the Caldera division, Caldera Thin Clients, will rename itself Lineo, and will be focusing on set-top boxes, and cash register systems. The system is beig developed using an Embedix, which is based an OpenLinux.

Why set-top boxes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the set-top box market so lucrative? Isn't the purpose of a settop box simply to be able to change channels and allow one to watch scrambled channels?

I know companies like MS and Caldera might have big plans as to what a settop box could do if only it ran their OS, but I don't think the average consumer who still can't program their VCR, are going to want a settop box that they can't use.

Lineo?

[abischof]

Lineo? Yuk... That's about as bad as Borland renaming itself Inprise [inprise.com]. Why mess with a good thing?

Alex Bischoff
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Re:Lineo?

[deno]

Lineo is actualy a good name for them. It resembles "Linea" which is Italian for a "Line". I suppose the Latin word must sound similar too.

And LINE is a damn good name for THIN clients...

Another article with more detail

[tbird]

Here's another article [news.com] that is somewhat more detailed (and dare I say, more accurate). The president of Lineo already responded (see above), but I think it's important to point out that we're not just targeting settops. We're making an embedded distribution, and an embedded systems development platform. We just happen to have our own application on settops as well.

Re:Linea = margerine..

[tjansen]

No, never seen Linea here (and I live near the dutch border)..

Lineo?

[rde]

Wasn't that the woman who played the babes in Deathstalker 2?

Re:How many forks must a Linux walk down...?

[artg]

Only because Windows buyers are accustomed to a monopoly supplier. BSD people shouldn't have too much trouble with multiple variants, I think..

What about all the suppliers of automobiles ? All slightly different, but all pretty well drop-in replacements. Most people consider this choice to be good - the days of 'any colour you like as long as it's black' are forgotten.

Linea = margerine..

[wfberg]

That's right. Linea is the name of a Dutch (possibly German, too) brand of margerine..

yuck

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Re:Linea = margerine..

[wfberg]

OOPS
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Re:Lineo?

[starling]

I can see the marketroid meeting now :

"It's _LIN_ux, it's _E_mbedded, and it's _O_pen. Yeah, LINEO, that'll work."

Yuk^2

The product itself sounds neat tho.

Linux business vs linux technical stuff on /.

[timothy]

Haven wrote:

I just don't like all this Linux news from the business world... why doesn't /. ever talk about the new technical aspects of Linux or *BSD? I hate all this market watch business crap.

Haven - I know what you mean, and I'm sure you're not the only one who feels this way about it, even though I like the business / market stuff.

One way I see around this is to assign more than one category to the news items so that readers can do tighter filtering. So this one could be filed under at least categories like:

- Caldera
- Business / marketplace
- IPOs and Spinoffs
- Embedded Linux

If in the user configuration menu, you could choose not to see things about Business and Marketplace, then you wouldn't see this, even if you would normally see things about Caldera, say.

Arranging the heirarchy so that it is understandable to users setting it up, and not too much of a pain to go back and change later would be the toughest part. UI is tough, even with an informed, savvy audience (and I'm on the low end of informed or savvy for slashdot), so making it better than the @$~# voicemail set-up menu at work is a real challenge.

BTW, I think a system like this (multiple indexes or tags on slashdot items) would be useful even if it was applied somewhat arbitrarily, as long as there were a few categories that were used consistently, so someone could, say, choose to "Always view items about the linux marketplace" and be confident that they would have been marked for inclusion if appropriate.

Re:Lineo?

[Reziac]

Since you asked if anyone has used WebSpyder -- I have it installed and occasionally drag it out. Connects painlessly to my PPP account at 52k using the included Netware drivers, has *very* fast HTML parsing (by far the best-performing DJGPP app I've seen), still has some of its ancestor Arachne's quirks (you should see what it does to tables!), nice enough interface tho real mousy, still lots of missing features, not very stable (crashes & freezes a lot), but all in all one helluva promising start. Since my fave fantasy is Netscape for DOS, I'm very interested in WebSpyder's future.

WebSpyder for Linux?

[juggleme]

Found something else interesting at The Register in this article [theregister.co.uk]. Looks like they're going to be porting the WebSpyder browser and calling it Embrowser. (Oooooh, aren't we creative ;) Has anyone actually used this? Could be more competition for the current version of Netscape (especially if it doesn't crash every hour and a half...). Still waiting for Opera of course...

To conquer by superior numbers

[Jor]

Maybe that laughter will die in their throats soner or later...

(i know, its off-topic - give it a -1 ;)
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Re:Why set-top boxes?

[bryansparks]

I have a couple of comments on some items mentioned in this and other messages.

First, let me tell you who I am and what gives me the right to an opinion on what Lineo is and what it will do.

I am the founder of Caldera, Inc. and the head of the newly re-named Lineo. We were Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. -- where we sold DR DOS and our embedded browser to embedded customers and markets. We are now adding embedded Linux, with it being a major focus.

First the comment I am replying to talks about set-top boxes as simply being a box to change channels, de-scramble, etc. Actually, the set-top boxes we are targeting are Internet set-top boxes for browsing the net using your TV and a detached keyboard. There will be some pretty cool stuff coming out by us and others in this area of "enhance TV". We already offer a set-top box solution (our browser on a small DR DOS kernel) but we are moving this technology to an embedded Linux base.

Secondly, there was a comment on the desire for more technical something or other on Linux as it compares to BSD. Well, we believe that Linux has a pretty good shot at providing alternatives in the embedded space with such suppliers as Wind River, Lynx and QNX. That is where Lineo hopes to take Linux. Not only on x86 embedded boards and markets but non-Intel as well. We will be making an announcement at LinuxWorld along these lines in a couple of weeks.

Third, there was a comment about Caldera changing its name. That is not true. Out of Caldera, Inc. there were two companies created last fall. Caldera Systems and Caldera Thin Clients. Caldera Systems is a company that supplies "boxed" product and full-featured Linux products under the brand name OpenLinux. They still exist and doing quite well. Their products look good and are continuing to improve. Caldera Thin Clients sold DR DOS and other things. We are simply changing the name of Caldera Thin Clients to Lineo.

On the comments of the quality of the name Lineo ... well getting a free domain name isn't easy anymore! and Lineo comes out of our brainstorming sessions of "LINux Embedded Objects", thus Lineo. It'll work ... and we own the domain name :-)

Lastly, we aren't only doing set-tops. We will be placing Linux in printers, medical devices, your cars, vending machines, phones and small routers and the like. We'll keep you posted.

Re:How many forks must a Linux walk down...?

[PowerPC]

I don't see this as a fork like the desktop distributions. For embedded Linux, we only have Hardhat Linux and Embedix now as competitors. That's not a lot of choices, but it's probably enough. Keep in mind that these products are aimed at a market where a desktop (install to a hard disk) type distribution is completely inadequate. Developers of embedded Linux applications require a system where the tools are not self-hosted since their targets probably can't suport self-hosting. Step back and consider that this makes the "distribution" method look a lot different now. Lineo and Hard Hat need to provide a product where developers can sit on a workstation Linux and build a target Linux system from a set of packaged building blocks. It's a completely different problem to solve that a typical distribution is designed for.