Intel claims that we will see Light Peak over the next few months:

From your link:

Intel hopes to start shipping Light Peak in 2010.

That’s a hope, not a firm commitment, and it gives them a full year.
Light Peak was first publicly demonstrated at the Intel Developer Forum in 2009. For comparison, USB 3.0, which is just now hitting the retail market, was introduced at the September 2007 IDF. To get Light Peak to that stage, Intel and allies will need to develop standards, both for software protocols and for the hardware; cables and connectors. Since external devices these days want a cabled-in power supply, Light Peak connectors and cables will be compound devices, with both optical fiber and copper conductors. That will figure into planning time and into wear-and-tear.

As for Intel’s LightPeak, I’m not sure we’ll see full market penetration. It’s not a backwards compatible device. It’s a new interface. It may be like Firewire – great, but never fully penetrating the mainstream.
Also, all the PR aside, I don’t think the wear-and-tear factor will be significantly higher for LightPeak than USB, and is far more likely to be significantly lower. Given the things I’ve heard from fiber techs regarding fiber, we’ll see how things work. And I’d give it two or three manufacturing/release generations into EITHER hardware until I buy into it. Because early adopters pay the price, in doubles.

Microsoft itself has stated that it expects broad-scale deployment of host controllers, devices, and products supporting SuperSpeed in 2010 and not before…..At the SuperSpeed Developers Conference in November 2008, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would have USB 3.0 support, perhaps not on its immediate release, but in a subsequent Service Pack or update. It is not out of the question to think that following a successful release of USB 3.

And I see this as your point, more or less – since Linux is in the open, and the standards are there, they have support before others. Apple’s currently concerned with lightpeak (which is slowing Intel to finish up their work on 3.0)

And there is no reason for MS to jump out of the gate with USB 3.0 support, they’ll need to take a look at the hardware, test test test before they can offer support. Linux has no need for that, as supporting the hardware itself is testing.

MadScientist: Gigabit ethernet will work for me but I need to run a proprietary protocol (not IP) because IP has too much dead weight in the protocol (wastes transmission time).

Speaking of dead weight, the USB protocols are not so great in that respect. For example, while the theoretical throughput for USB2.0 is ~ 48 MB/s, good luck betting better than ~ 35 MB/s. You might want to read up on the UASP protocol initiative. It should improve throughput for mass storage devices under USB 2.0 and 3.0.

Intel claims that we will see Light Peak over the next few months:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8272003.stm

Michael: Besides Light Peak is going to make USB 3.0 pointless.

USB 3.0 is available today. Presuming Intel goes full speed ahead with LightPeak, there might be products on the market in two years. Or longer. And if/when they are available, they will be supported on Linux.