"I hear that train a coming" – do you? A lot of you were a little shocked about my recent post where I alluded to MS Windows 7 or shall we say 7+ overtaking Linux as the system of choice for power, performance, and reliability – not to mention practicality. Well I'm looking at a few major changes that will change the face of Linux, as you may now know it. Let's take a few steps back just to reiterate that I am a big fan of Linux and Unix. My dissatisfaction has usually been centered on some of the distributions that over the years have promised the same flexibility and ease of use of a Windows machine, but still have lacked in a total "one distro fits all" scheme. Of course there are many who like that aspect. Linux has gone deep into the mainstream, but I still seem to get more work done lately on Windows machines. Since I prefer the command line in Windows I often don't miss the one in Linux or Unix. I just like to get work done, and that is the bottom line for most people. There's a whole new ballgame out there and it starts with a "G" With all the development and innovation coming from the people at Google I believe it is only a matter of time before they release their own OS for the PC. This may be built right into the Linux kernel and possibly resemble something that looks and feels a little like the Mac OS. Another development I have been waiting for has been the new Palm OS that has been reported to build upon Linux. If both of these developments come to pass you may just see a bigger divide between industrial computer systems and consumer computer interfaces. On the other end of the spectrum is Windows embedded. Right now XP Embedded is a solid industrial strength OS. I expect current systems running this version of XP to hang in there for a few more years. Just don't get this confused with the mainstream version of XP Home or Pro. A lot depends on the hardware architecture that it resides on. I can think of a few solid systems that deploy this design, but that's another story altogether. What you might want to do now is get a little familiar with Google's Chrome browser and some of the applications. If you currently run the gOS Linux distro on one of your machines you may be able to get a sense of where all this is going. It's not where I would like it to be yet; I had to load XP onto my new micro laptop because the Linux distro that came with it wasn't going to help me get my work done. It's a long boring story you don't really want to hear, just to let you know I will load gOS as soon as I get my current project done – maybe. I'm really getting impatient waiting for the much-touted Palm OS. Unfortunately most of my old test and configuration software only runs on XP. That kind of holds the works back a little, but that will all change as soon as manufacturers get more comfortable with the latest upgrade to Vista. Don't get me wrong, you can get work done on Vista – my wife doesn't have any problems with it and often gets a little annoyed with my need to work with multiple PCs, every OS, and server configuration available. Hey it keeps me busy, but I often wonder what it would be like to rely on only one OS. Right now I have to jump back and forth between Windows, Linux, and Unix systems. I think it's better to have the best of all worlds available, but someday I may just stick with one device to get my work done. No it's not a Black Berry either.

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