Lineo
Encyclopedia
Lineo was a thin client
and embedded system
s company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients, on 20 July 1999.
Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera
, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' original President and CEO was Roger Gross, who resigned in January 1999.
Lineo's President and CEO, when it reformed under the new name, became Bryan Sparks, who also had been one of the original founders of Caldera, Inc., in 1994. At the time of its creation, Lineo had 14 employees.
Lineo's main product was Embedix, a lightweight Linux
distribution for embedded systems, licensed from Caldera Systems, Inc., another subsidiary of Caldera, Inc.
Another product was DR-DOS
, an MS-DOS compatible operating system
, previously developed by Caldera UK, Ltd. between 1996 and 1999 and originally acquired from Novell by Caldera, Inc., on 23 July 1996.
Through its acquisitions Lineo also had a range of products in many different product categories.
Through a series of acquisitions and mergers, Lineo eventually ballooned to a peak of about 350 employees, with offices in seven countries. The companies that it acquired or merged with were:
The Embedix division was purchased and absorbed by Metrowerks
.
Parts of the DR-DOS sources were acquired by DeviceLogics
in 2002.
The router division (formerly Moreton Bay) spun out as SnapGear, and was later acquired by CyberGuard and then Secure Computing
, and Secure Computing was acquired by McAfee
and as of 2008 was still producing the SnapGear brand of VPN/routers.
A former Japanese acquisition and at one time wholly owned subsidiary, United System Engineers, Inc. (USE), now trades as Lineo Solutions.
Thin client
A thin client is a computer or a computer program which depends heavily on some other computer to fulfill its traditional computational roles. This stands in contrast to the traditional fat client, a computer designed to take on these roles by itself...
and embedded system
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...
s company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients, on 20 July 1999.
Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera
Caldera (company)
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.- Caldera :Caldera, Inc...
, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' original President and CEO was Roger Gross, who resigned in January 1999.
Lineo's President and CEO, when it reformed under the new name, became Bryan Sparks, who also had been one of the original founders of Caldera, Inc., in 1994. At the time of its creation, Lineo had 14 employees.
Lineo's main product was Embedix, a lightweight Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
distribution for embedded systems, licensed from Caldera Systems, Inc., another subsidiary of Caldera, Inc.
Another product was DR-DOS
DR-DOS
DR-DOS is an MS-DOS-compatible operating system for IBM PC-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86...
, an MS-DOS compatible operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, previously developed by Caldera UK, Ltd. between 1996 and 1999 and originally acquired from Novell by Caldera, Inc., on 23 July 1996.
Through its acquisitions Lineo also had a range of products in many different product categories.
Through a series of acquisitions and mergers, Lineo eventually ballooned to a peak of about 350 employees, with offices in seven countries. The companies that it acquired or merged with were:
- Zentropix - realtime Linux specialists
- RT-control - uCLinux creators, very small board (uCDimm) vendors
- Moreton Bay - VPN/Router vendor (located in Brisbane, Australia)
- United Systems Engineering (USE) - Japanese Linux consulting company
- Fireplug - Canadian Linux consulting company (ThinLinux product)
- Inup - High availability Linux
- Embedded Power Corporation - Realtime and DSP OS (RTXC product)
The Embedix division was purchased and absorbed by Metrowerks
Metrowerks
Metrowerks was a company that developed software development tools for various desktop, handheld, embedded, and gaming platforms. Its flagship product, CodeWarrior, comprised an IDE, compilers, linkers, debuggers, libraries, and related tools...
.
Parts of the DR-DOS sources were acquired by DeviceLogics
DeviceLogics
DeviceLogics is a startup company in Lindon, Utah, United States of America, founded in 2002. Bryan Sparks co-founded DeviceLogics, and acquired DR-DOS from the Canopy Group, a Utah technology venture group...
in 2002.
The router division (formerly Moreton Bay) spun out as SnapGear, and was later acquired by CyberGuard and then Secure Computing
Secure Computing
Secure Computing Corporation, or SCC, was a public company that developed and sold computer security appliances and hosted services to protect users and data...
, and Secure Computing was acquired by McAfee
McAfee
McAfee, Inc. is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. On August 19, 2010, electronics company Intel agreed to purchase McAfee for $7.68 billion...
and as of 2008 was still producing the SnapGear brand of VPN/routers.
A former Japanese acquisition and at one time wholly owned subsidiary, United System Engineers, Inc. (USE), now trades as Lineo Solutions.