A Russian company ARBYTE came to Mentorel in 2010 with a project where they needed a software solution for a few portable PCs. Those PCs intended to be used by government structures for educational purposes. Therefore ARBYTE wanted a simple, flexible and reliable solution, preferably open sourced, so it could be easily modified. They needed to remove any brands, OS prints, literally everything that could appear on a screen until their application began to show.

ARBYTE Group is a manufacturer and supplier of solutions, products and services in IT, which has been working in the Russian market since 1991. ARBYTE delivers not only PCs, server and CAD/CAM/CAE solutions, but also delivers implementation services of IT infrastructure management, IT security management, IT Asset management, Service Desk solution, systems management, carries out administrative consulting, support services and training.

Mentorel’s engineers decided to use Ubuntu Linux. We modified a linux kernel to remove all unnecessary drivers, and a root file system to remove unnecessary OS services and utilities. All branding information was removed, so a PC booted silently till the moment when the ARBYTE’s application showed up on the screen.

Tasks completed during the project:

• Linux distributions development for 4 PC models manufactured by Orsio, Flytech, Ruggedbook;
• Kernel adaptation to specific hardware configurations for Tablet PCs;
• Kernel modifications to protect from external devices connections;
• Linux distribution development for a PC embedded in a 52″ LCD-panel, used for presentations;
• Distributions and Hardware testing;
• Software support and enhancement.