Ampro Computers is one of those companies that may not be as famous as IBM or Dell (News - Alert), but they produce hardware that finds its way anywhere a device is needed in an embedded environment that’s small, rugged, and dependable. Long a renowned maker of PC-compatible computer modules for embedded applications, Ampro originated the PC/104 and PC/104-Plus standards, and co-authored (with Motorola (News - Alert)) the EBX high-performance non-backplane SBC standard (based on Ampro’s popular Little Board form-factor). They also co-created the popular EPIC SBC standard, and they even produced the first-line “extreme rugged” computer-on-module (COM) products in ETX and COM Express formats.

 

And now, Ampro Computers has debuted new Linux support for its line of board-level embedded computers. Derived from Ubuntu (News - Alert) packages, Ampro Embedded Linux is a free, open-source, reduced-footprint operating system enhanced with device-oriented features such as its default touch-enabled Hildon graphical user interface, plus other selected technologies from the Ubuntu Mobile & Embedded (UME) project.

 

Ampro Embedded Linux targets developers designing the company’s highly-reliable single-board computers (SBCs), computer-on-modules (COMs), and system-level products into a wide range of applications in industries such as medical, defense, industrial control, retail point-of-sales/service, avionics, and wired/wireless communications.

 

“With this announcement, Ampro becomes the embedded industry’s first SBC manufacturer to support all of its products with an embedded Linux OS derived from Ubuntu, today’s most popular form of Linux,” said Ampro CTO Rick Lehrbaum.

 

Ubuntu’s meteoric rise in popularity among embedded developers is evidenced by a recent survey conducted by LinuxDevices.com. “Preliminary results from LinuxDevices.com’s 2008 Reader Survey suggest that Ubuntu ranks fourth behind uClinux, Debian, and kernel.org in popularity, with 8.2 percent of respondents embedding Ubuntu over the last two years, and nearly 10 percent planning to do so over the next two,” said Henry Kingman, Executive Editor of LinuxDevices.com. “This rapid adoption curve is all the more remarkable given that it’s only the second year we’ve asked about Ubuntu.”

 

"Ampro selected Ubuntu Linux as the basis of our new embedded Linux offering for three key reasons,” Lehrbaum added. “First, Ubuntu has rapidly emerged as one of the most popular Linux distributions in both desktop and server applications, and the project recently has become a key partner in Intel’s (News - Alert) Mobile and Internet Linux (Moblin) initiative. Second, Ubuntu is a completely free and open-source OS, availing developers of easy access to source code and minimizing device costs. Third, Ubuntu features a simple yet powerful package management infrastructure, APT (News - Alert), which enables quick and easy software installation, updates, and security patches.”

 

Ampro’s reduced-footprint embedded Linux distribution currently includes some 700 packages and offers three kernel options: the latest standard Ubuntu kernel, plus both standard and real-time kernels built from kernel.org sources. On top of this, developers can use the provided APT tools to install a choice among thousands of additional open-source packages from Ubuntu and other repositories. For example, the Fluxbox graphical user interface comes preinstalled, but alternatives like GNOME and KDE are easily substituted.

 

Ampro Embedded Linux will ship within 30-45 days in the QuickStart Kits for most of Ampro’s single-board computer, computer-on-module, and system-level products.