Linux Coming To Handheld Market Soon

Linux kernel developer Linus Torvalds on Wednesday told a crowd of Linux faithful here that the "Win(dows)-CE crowd" is certainly going to be able to use Linux in the not-too-distant future.

Torvalds was responding to a question from the audience at Fall Internet World 99 here and did not elaborate further.

But to date, Linux is mostly found on network servers with some limited desktop use, and is rare in the handheld market, where Microsoft Corp. is aggressively positioning Windows CE on devices competing with 3Com Corp.'s popular Palm Pilot.

Torvalds also noted that "windowing systems are not applicable in all situations." He charged that Win-CE does not work well in embedded devices. "We tried to put windowing into [the Linux] kernel," he said. "It doesn't work. You want modularity, interchangeable products."