Lineo attracts new backers

Motorola Computing Group and Egan-Managed Capital have taken equity investments in Lineo, a company pushing the Linux operating system into small devices.

The expected investment from the Motorola Computing Group, first reported in October by CNET News.com, tightens the ties between Lineo and Motorola, which is developing Linux servers guaranteed to stay up and running 99.999 percent of the time.

In addition, Lineo got a new member of its board of directors: John Egan, a board member and former executive vice president at storage firm EMC now with Egan-Managed Capital. Egan Managed Capital also invested in Caldera Systems, a Linux software seller that's Lineo's sister company. Lineo's Embedix version of Linux for non-PC devices is based on Caldera Systems' version of Linux for desktops and servers.

The companies didn't disclose the size of the investments. Lineo, which is in the midst of a slough of acquisitions, is planning to go public.

Lineo isn't the only company aiming to push Linux onto gadgets. Red Hat, for example, through its acquisition of Cygnus Solutions, has hopes for the market segment. Cygnus has its own operating system, eCos, for "embedded" devices. Brother will use eCos to power two laser printers, the recently announced HL-2400CeN and HL-3400CN models.