Screaming Penguin

A good friend of mine (Mihi) is a serious machine man, he owns a serious machine shop with many CNC (computer numeric controlled) machines and other fancy equipment. He read an article lately in the trade magazine metlfax that highlighted Linux (with a picture of Tux too!) It seems Linux is making inroads everywhere. And in fact the relationship of free Open Source operating systems and other software components is almost a neccessity in manufacturing. Almost everything is at least somewhat custom. Check out this metlfax Linux Article for details on how Linux is being employed for "Open Architecture controls for machines and robots." As well as being the designers and engineers desktop and machine interface, Linux runs the robots and "Openness allows new applications to be written that can improve shop operations in ways that the original equipment manufacturers didnt predict." Very kewl stuff and again better things should emerge as a result of better, lower cost, and more flexible manufacturing, more ideas can become reality because of Open Source technologies. Check out what these machine folks have to say about Linux! "Linux: the tailor-made operating system Linuxs speed isnt the only feature that makes this OS one of the hottest items on the Internet. As far as an operating system, Linuxs flexibility is unsurpassed. Since Linux is open source, any person can take the software and amend it to meet their specific needs. Linux also has the benefit being able to run on many different machines. "Linux runs on many different architectures," says Mat Kovach of the Cleveland Linux Users Group. "Right now, it mostly is being used in Web serving applications and desktop computers. In the near future, I think that Linux will expand into small, embedded systems, and even into CNC and PC-based manufacturing." In the future, look for software manufacturers to write CNC,CAD/CAM software, and other manufacturing software for Linux as well as Windows and UNIX. Also, look for versions of Linux designed for specific CNC applications to emerge. No two versions of Linux are the same. Then again, neither are two shops. "In many applications, Linux isnt the number one choice," says Linus Torvalds, Finnish computer whiz and creator of Linux. "It is also very clear that there are a lot of people working on making Linux the number one choice." The open-source revolution is peaking. Not only can a shop owner download all the software needed to run a shop, but he can do it for free and personalize the software."