To date, the operating system of choice for the MIT wearable computing program has been Linux due to the availability of drivers and applications, ease of programming, and the good community support for the OS. Other OS's of interest are Solaris (for its new mobility hooks and commercial support; by Sun), NetBSD (stability; by the net community), OS-9000 (real-time OS, small kernal, longevity, and rabid following; by Microware), and OS/2 (stability and commercial popularity; by IBM). I avoid Windows variants (especially Windows for Pens) due to the sloppy coding practices and lack of intelligent support I have experienced while working with this line of products. In addition, working drivers for new hardware tend to be written faster for Linux than for Windows (while commercial firms tend to write for Windows first, these drivers tend to interfere with other hardware on the machine). Time will tell if this has been a good choice. Watch here for updates of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Last modified: Tue Sep 5 23:18:23 1995