...making Linux just a little more fun!  Open Hardware and the
Penguin: using Linux as an Arduino development platform  By Tom
Parkin   Linux is one of the more scalable Operating Systems in
existence today, equally at home on tiny embedded single-board-
computers as it is on supercomputing clusters. However there
will always be some computing applications for which Linux
doesn't fit; indeed for which any OS at all is something of an
unnecessary overhead. Devices fitting this niche are many and
varied, ranging from low-powered PIC devices to more capable
microprocessors (such as those based around Intel's venerable
8051 chip). Typically each device or device family comes with
its own software stack and development environment, and until
recently, all the options for development at this level held one
thing in common: proprietary designs, and proprietary software.
Enter the Arduino  This is beginning to change. Although hardly
as vibrant and diverse as the Open Source software ecosystem, a
nascent Open Source