According to reports, the newly-announced firm Linaro - a non-profit company that has been formed as a result of a collaborative effort of some of the leading high-tech firms - will largely attempt to boost Linux further into the consumer gadget arena.

With the aim of promoting the use of Linux software on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, Linaro is a result of a collaboration that boasts the names of some of the top high-tech companies - ARM, IBM, Freescale Semiconductor, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments.

Noting that Linaro will help the open source community developing software to run on ARM-based CPUs, Warren East, the chief executive of ARM, said that the firma associated with Linaro are "working together with the broader open source community to accelerate innovation for the next generation of computing, focusing on delivering a rich connected experience across the diversity of devices in our daily lives."

According to ARM's director of strategic marketing Kerry McGuire, the software and tools offered by Linaro will aim at an array of smart-connected devices - like smartphones, tablets, DTVs, automotive entertainment systems.

The tools from Linaro, the first of which will be released in November this year, will essentially help different Linux-based distributions - Android, MeeGo, LiMo, webOS, and Ubuntu - work as effectively as possible with the high-performance, low-power processors required by the smart-connected devices.