Almost everyone has heard of Linux. It is open source, and has been much in discussion in the software development and system administration communities. Linux was originally targeted specifically for desktop PCs running an Intel 80x86 or compatible microprocessor.

Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux, had said, “Linux will never run on anything but a PC with an IDE hard disk since that is all that I have”.  At present, Linux is ported to different microprocessors and runs on multiple platforms that don’t have a hard disk. Most of these devices are not general purpose computer systems and include devices such as network routers and data collection units for tracking tornadoes. It is these types of systems that have collectively been labeled as “Embedded Linux”.