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Check out handhelds.org and the Familiar project. Most of the new stuff is on the wiki, and on the mailing lists (recent archives of which can be viewed through gmane.org).

We think Familiar provides a base operating system and application set that seriously rivals (if not outdoes) other mobile offerings. The only major issue we have on devices such as the iPAQ that don't run Linux out of the box is that getting all of the hardware supported is a difficult job. However, this situation is improving - commercially-sponsored projects to port Linux to specific handheld devices are currently going on, as are others driven by developers working individually.

Companies taking Familiar and using it as a base for something to be used in commercial products would be a good thing (provided that the GPL is followed, of course). We'd definitely like to see more of that happening.

Check out handhelds.org and the Familiar project. Most of the new stuff is on the wiki, and on the mailing lists (recent archives of which can be viewed through gmane.org).

We think Familiar provides a base operating system and application set that seriously rivals (if not outdoes) other mobile offerings. The only major issue we have on devices such as the iPAQ that don't run Linux out of the box is that getting all of the hardware supported is a difficult job. However, this situation is improving - commercially-sponsored projects to port Linux to specific handheld devices are currently going on, as are others driven by developers working individually.

Companies taking Familiar and using it as a base for something to be used in commercial products would be a good thing (provided that the GPL is followed, of course). We'd definitely like to see more of that happening.

actually the unix under OS X (darwin ) is free and open source. you can get the source here . The GUI is not open source but everything else is.

Because we all hope that Sony can get some clue, and add all this features on the next release of PSP[1].

This could be great, I can't imagine a celphone combined with an videogame, Nokia tried and failed... but I can see future for a Zaurus combined with a videogame!

Comon Sony, QTopia/Opie[2] is already there for free! Just add a touchscreen to the PSP[1] and you're set to kill the DS[3]!!
---
[1] Play Station Portable
[2] http://opie.handhelds.org
[3] Nintendo DS

It isn't. OTOH you can check the debian-based distro familiar for embedded devices (for PDAs such as the HP ipaq for example).

There's also emdebian, but I don't know if it'll change its different arch support after the mainstream Debian decides to drop some of them.

Latest Familiar 0.8.1 is based on OpenEmbedded. No more need for Debian/Arm.

Linux?

Depending on the model of PocketPC - yes.

I put the noisy, centralized servers, with their HDs and fans, into a closet with a fan that is away from the people in my home. I put multimedia terminals (audio only for now) in places like the bedroom, library and livingroom, on silent iPaqs. They run Familiar, a Debian-based distro, and make no noise - and are much more power-efficient than their less "mobile" cousins. The system will be more complete when my MythTV server is sending video to a cheap, fanless PII notebook with touchscreen.

This seems like a weaselly way to get "silent" computing, but it's really a way to use distributed multiprocessing on a network for consumer-friendly personal apps. Which are nice and quiet, and use less power, while being more convenient, than more powerful centralized computers which need cooling and more power. The apartment is the computer!

Ipaqs do run X check out their project page Here. You can read why they use X from Jim Gettys. He has a very small less than 600k foot print X server that runs on the ipaq. a minimal full screen optimized window manager. And applications are just built for the screen size currently.

Now locking down is also very possible with just X configuration - just one mouse button equals no unnecessary context menus and unnecessary keyboard shortcuts (very few) can be removed with xmodmapping them to something that doesn't do anything. After that you can just remove the unnecessary GUI elements from Ffox. The only thing that can be changed currently on my thinclients (for browsing a library registry and online databases) is the order of the bookmarks toolbar. That one I guess I'd need an extension for. I'll look at it when the Mozilla development book finally arrives.

I have an iPAQ handheld running Familiar-Linux and you can get most software from the Debian project to run on it. See http://www.handhelds.org/.

Thus having 128MB RAM and 128MB flash is very luxury on a system like that without the need to develop new software or digging out old software that ran on an old 386.

I run Familiar linux on my h3800, with the Opie environment. It combines everything I liked about PocketPC (the PIM apps, mainly) with everything I liked about PalmOS (interface & stability) with a healthy toss in from Linux (GPL'ed software in droves). It has it's own quirks, but if you have an officially supported PDA, release 0.8 oughta "just work". And, it's binary compatible with Debian on ARM and the Sharp Zaurus. Sure, the screen is small, but with a folding keyboard it's enough to do almost anything. Disclaimer for those using more current versions of PalmOS than what came with the Palm IIxe: I don't know what current PalmOS PIM apps can do, I can only compare to my IIIxe

As not to sound like a Familiar fanboy, there are certian things that have irked me about it. The install process can be tricky. It involves installing a new bootloader, which normally goes alright (but if it fails, you've just "bricked" the ipaq. Compaq fixed them for free, don't know about current HP policy). However, when flashing the actual OS, sometimes things goof apparently... upon reflashing to upgrade from Familiar 0.7.2 to 0.8, something messed up, and my wlan kernel modules were wonky, as well as suspend (i.e.- it didn't.) I reflashed it, and it works perfectly. Also, some apps just don't work right, from either bugs or poor configuration (such as konqueror-embedded not being compiled with ssl support... come on, is it that big of a deal?)

The single best thing about it though, is being able to use vim on the damn thing. Who cares about note taking software when you have vim? ;)

I'm happy to inform you that you can get an iPaq h3800 series handheld on eBay for about $100-200, depending on its condition, the number of accessories, etc. The h3600 and h3700 series had problems with battery life, but the h3800 series solved that (mainly by putting a bigger battery in, but also by adjusting the requirements of the backlight). The h3800 also had an SD/MMC slot and Bluetooth.

HP is a huge sponsor of the handhelds.org project, which aims to get a good Linux distro on the iPaq, Zaurus, and (I think) Jornada handhelds. They run you through the installation process (and how to back up your original flash ROM in case you want to go back to Windows PocketPC) and provide a package management system and a host of other fun things. There are even a number of desktop environments:

• Opie which is based off TrollTech's Qtopia (which I think is the enviro used in the Zaurus handheld). I can't comment on it much because I haven't been paying attention to its development.
• GPE, which I'm more interested in, because it uses lots of freedesktop.org standards like HAL, DBUS, gstreamer, etc, and I'm a GNOME fan myself. The website is pretty spare, but if you search the mailing lists, you realise there's a lot more going on than meets the eye.

Both of those desktop environments are available in the Familiar distro, which is the standard iPaq Linux distro. Familiar provides an X server, Python, Perl, ssh, vnc, etc, etc, etc, so if you don't mind programming, you'll probably feel quite okay.

There's another distro based on Familiar called Intimate. It's closer to a desktop distro, so you can install KDE, GNOME, the Mozilla Suite, Fluxbox, etc.

One caveat: The iPaq installation HOWTO says that you need either a serial cradle or a CompactFlash sleeve for your handheld, so before you bid on an auction, make sure it has one of those two features! Not all iPaqs sold have CF sleeves!

(Get this: after you install the bootloader, you get the base system uploaded and bootstrapped using... Zmodem! remember Zmodem?)

I'm happy to inform you that you can get an iPaq h3800 series handheld on eBay for about $100-200, depending on its condition, the number of accessories, etc. The h3600 and h3700 series had problems with battery life, but the h3800 series solved that (mainly by putting a bigger battery in, but also by adjusting the requirements of the backlight). The h3800 also had an SD/MMC slot and Bluetooth.

HP is a huge sponsor of the handhelds.org project, which aims to get a good Linux distro on the iPaq, Zaurus, and (I think) Jornada handhelds. They run you through the installation process (and how to back up your original flash ROM in case you want to go back to Windows PocketPC) and provide a package management system and a host of other fun things. There are even a number of desktop environments:

• Opie which is based off TrollTech's Qtopia (which I think is the enviro used in the Zaurus handheld). I can't comment on it much because I haven't been paying attention to its development.
• GPE, which I'm more interested in, because it uses lots of freedesktop.org standards like HAL, DBUS, gstreamer, etc, and I'm a GNOME fan myself. The website is pretty spare, but if you search the mailing lists, you realise there's a lot more going on than meets the eye.

Both of those desktop environments are available in the Familiar distro, which is the standard iPaq Linux distro. Familiar provides an X server, Python, Perl, ssh, vnc, etc, etc, etc, so if you don't mind programming, you'll probably feel quite okay.

There's another distro based on Familiar called Intimate. It's closer to a desktop distro, so you can install KDE, GNOME, the Mozilla Suite, Fluxbox, etc.

One caveat: The iPaq installation HOWTO says that you need either a serial cradle or a CompactFlash sleeve for your handheld, so before you bid on an auction, make sure it has one of those two features! Not all iPaqs sold have CF sleeves!

(Get this: after you install the bootloader, you get the base system uploaded and bootstrapped using... Zmodem! remember Zmodem?)

I'm happy to inform you that you can get an iPaq h3800 series handheld on eBay for about $100-200, depending on its condition, the number of accessories, etc. The h3600 and h3700 series had problems with battery life, but the h3800 series solved that (mainly by putting a bigger battery in, but also by adjusting the requirements of the backlight). The h3800 also had an SD/MMC slot and Bluetooth.

HP is a huge sponsor of the handhelds.org project, which aims to get a good Linux distro on the iPaq, Zaurus, and (I think) Jornada handhelds. They run you through the installation process (and how to back up your original flash ROM in case you want to go back to Windows PocketPC) and provide a package management system and a host of other fun things. There are even a number of desktop environments:

• Opie which is based off TrollTech's Qtopia (which I think is the enviro used in the Zaurus handheld). I can't comment on it much because I haven't been paying attention to its development.
• GPE, which I'm more interested in, because it uses lots of freedesktop.org standards like HAL, DBUS, gstreamer, etc, and I'm a GNOME fan myself. The website is pretty spare, but if you search the mailing lists, you realise there's a lot more going on than meets the eye.

Both of those desktop environments are available in the Familiar distro, which is the standard iPaq Linux distro. Familiar provides an X server, Python, Perl, ssh, vnc, etc, etc, etc, so if you don't mind programming, you'll probably feel quite okay.

There's another distro based on Familiar called Intimate. It's closer to a desktop distro, so you can install KDE, GNOME, the Mozilla Suite, Fluxbox, etc.

One caveat: The iPaq installation HOWTO says that you need either a serial cradle or a CompactFlash sleeve for your handheld, so before you bid on an auction, make sure it has one of those two features! Not all iPaqs sold have CF sleeves!

(Get this: after you install the bootloader, you get the base system uploaded and bootstrapped using... Zmodem! remember Zmodem?)

I also have a similar dream of a go-anywhere box that can connect to consoles and KVM and anything else. My dream is this though:

I have a small palmtop like an iPAQ running Linux.
It has a VGA out connector going to an HUD on my glasses.
I have a GKOS keyboard in each hand connected to the iPAQ via bluetooth.
I have a bunch of serial/USB to bluetooth dongles that can emulate a keyboard and mouse, and/or talk to serial consoles.

Then I just walk up to a machine, if it doesn't already have a network connection for the console, then I plug in my USB/serial dongle and away I go. It's the same keyboard/mouse that I use for my PC at my desk.

The only problem I have with this is that I still have to connect up a monitor to any machines that don't have serial consoles.

DRM or no, there's a project at handhelds.org so we can get this Windows stuff off it. If anyone can lend a hand, it would be much appreciated !!

If you've got a 3xxx or 5xxx series PDA, that's when you install Familiar Linux onto it. Once I stopped fucking with shit I ought not to be fucking with (the "Geee, let's see what this will do" syndrome), the only resets I've had to do are when letting the battery empty on accident. Rock-solid, and binary-compatible with Debian for ARM, and Sharp Zaurus software (GUI software for the Zaurus requires the Opie qt-based environment). Haven't missed anything from WinCE at all on my iPaq 3800.

Yes, that site is out of date. It hasn't changed since March 2003! Why is this Slashdot news? (Don't answer that.)

We've made much progress with Linux on the TC1?00 beyond what is reflected on that site. See the results at our wiki.

The Siemens simpad can run linux, thanks to open simpad. I run Qtopia on mine, but it can also run Opie and X11 if you want that. This screen is an actual touchscreen, so I don't even need a stylus, I can use my finger.

This would not be connected to the success of the Opie Project, would it?

Bah. The solution is to get an IPAQ and put Linux on it. > Familar Linux</a> is amazing for the IPAQs and with a portable keyboard you can be using all of those wonderful CLI aps you have come to know and love (You dont need the keyboard but it makes things a hell of a lot faster) :-)

Only if you are running familiar or OpenZaurus. GPE has excellent handwriting recognition. KPIM works almost exactly like Palm datebook +. Then you also have browsers, wifi, media players and other not considered "palm" programs.

I'm still using a Handspring Visor to organize my life, but I can see great advantages to newer platforms. With a little work, I'll master syncing with the Zaurus. If I do that and can find as good a calculator as the Visor has, that's it for the visor.

There's no way I'll find what I'm looking for in a Pocket PC running Microsoft crap. The last time I looked, those keyboardless things without decent hadwriting were a huge pain in the ass to use.

give me that, ssh, and an internet connnection and people (I) would start doing all sorts of cool things with the palm.

Get an iPaq, install Familiar. Or get a Zaurus.

is this: http://www.handhelds.org/

I found that Familiar was essential for my PocketPC. Even though the OS that came on my handheld synced with Outlook it didn't always work correctly even though both pieces of software were made by the same company. The original OS was also limited to Microsoft operating systems. Since I'm thinking about getting a Mac i wanted something that could work with a unix system.

If it already runs under Linux, it might not be too hard for them to port it to a Zaurus. However, with Sharp's limited distribution in the US and Europe, I doubt they'd even try. It's too bad because I be the same app could run without recompiling on OpenZaurus or even an iPAQ running Familiar.

Of course, this isn't the only handheld option. The TomTom folks also have PDA editions for more popular devices.

[ tons of tips and ideas what's possible with a Z follow ]

The 5500 and others are more like little Linux laptops then PDAs. While I am far from a typical PDA user, the absolutely INCREDIBLE stuff I can do with just a 5500 and a wireless card continues to astound me today. To be fair, I never bought a Zaurus with the intention of ever doing typical PDA like stuff, but just wanted an easy familiar environment to hack in.

Years ago I had a USR P1000 (The Palm 1000, before Palm bought it from US Robotics), and while it was a great PDA (for the day), it was underpowered for what I wanted and most importantly LACKED A KEYBOARD, which makes all the difference in the world. One day I worked an ENTIRE day with only my P1000, a ssh client and a (9600 baud) serial link to my cell phone to see just how doable it was. As a unix admin doing security work the P1000 did have SOME uses (serial console to Sun boxes, ssh client for accessing mail via Mutt, etc) but the end result was a less than productive day overall. Trying to edit files on unix boxes with vi using Graffiti was quite painful and I vowed I'd never buy another PDA until it had at least a minimal keyboard to work with.

Fast forward to my (now several years old) 5500. Shortly after getting it I wiped the original Sharp rom and replace it with the actively developed OpenZaurus distribution, and was very happy with the results.

I have a very portable linux box with wireless, nearly all the software I was using on Solaris and Linux, as well as the pretty Qtopia apps and a half-way decent environment. I've been able to get nice tools like nmap, p0f (Passive OS Fingerprinter), Kismet, and other excellent unix based tools working with minimal effort on the Z under OpenZaurus (and the a lesser extent the Sharp ROM). Under OZ I can compile and run MANY common exploit tools like the awesome Metasploit framework, which require perl, and to a less extent Python. Both are no big deal to get going on the Z, especially since the Z is binary compatible with the IPAQ based Familiar distribution, and usually just needs the odd library to get an app working. That's all fine for text based apps, but since OZ (using Opie, at least) is QT and not X based, a variety of GUI based apps don't easily run. There ARE solutions to getting X based apps to run with minimal fuss, including the original x11zaurus package, and more recently the excellent X/QT package, as well as simply running one of the versions of the vncserver for Zaurus which of course allows you to display X not only on your Z, but also on any other VNC compatible device (such such as you cell phone, Linux, Windows, etc).

More recently the GPE environment and projects has become available, and is offers an attractive alternative to Opie, but with X11 compatibility built in.

For me, I joined the Debian religion ~5-6 years ago after experimenting to see what all the fuss on /. was all about. It didn't take long before I was the typical Debian crack addict apt-getting any application I wanted to check out on a whim. After living in Ottawa for years I was very well aware of the Corel (and later Rebel.com (who themselves were called Hardware Canada previously, and were a unix reseller) Netwinder , which was a cool little ARM based PC, which unfortunately suffered under the idiocy of Corel's managem

[ tons of tips and ideas what's possible with a Z follow ]

The 5500 and others are more like little Linux laptops then PDAs. While I am far from a typical PDA user, the absolutely INCREDIBLE stuff I can do with just a 5500 and a wireless card continues to astound me today. To be fair, I never bought a Zaurus with the intention of ever doing typical PDA like stuff, but just wanted an easy familiar environment to hack in.

Years ago I had a USR P1000 (The Palm 1000, before Palm bought it from US Robotics), and while it was a great PDA (for the day), it was underpowered for what I wanted and most importantly LACKED A KEYBOARD, which makes all the difference in the world. One day I worked an ENTIRE day with only my P1000, a ssh client and a (9600 baud) serial link to my cell phone to see just how doable it was. As a unix admin doing security work the P1000 did have SOME uses (serial console to Sun boxes, ssh client for accessing mail via Mutt, etc) but the end result was a less than productive day overall. Trying to edit files on unix boxes with vi using Graffiti was quite painful and I vowed I'd never buy another PDA until it had at least a minimal keyboard to work with.

Fast forward to my (now several years old) 5500. Shortly after getting it I wiped the original Sharp rom and replace it with the actively developed OpenZaurus distribution, and was very happy with the results.

I have a very portable linux box with wireless, nearly all the software I was using on Solaris and Linux, as well as the pretty Qtopia apps and a half-way decent environment. I've been able to get nice tools like nmap, p0f (Passive OS Fingerprinter), Kismet, and other excellent unix based tools working with minimal effort on the Z under OpenZaurus (and the a lesser extent the Sharp ROM). Under OZ I can compile and run MANY common exploit tools like the awesome Metasploit framework, which require perl, and to a less extent Python. Both are no big deal to get going on the Z, especially since the Z is binary compatible with the IPAQ based Familiar distribution, and usually just needs the odd library to get an app working. That's all fine for text based apps, but since OZ (using Opie, at least) is QT and not X based, a variety of GUI based apps don't easily run. There ARE solutions to getting X based apps to run with minimal fuss, including the original x11zaurus package, and more recently the excellent X/QT package, as well as simply running one of the versions of the vncserver for Zaurus which of course allows you to display X not only on your Z, but also on any other VNC compatible device (such such as you cell phone, Linux, Windows, etc).

More recently the GPE environment and projects has become available, and is offers an attractive alternative to Opie, but with X11 compatibility built in.

For me, I joined the Debian religion ~5-6 years ago after experimenting to see what all the fuss on /. was all about. It didn't take long before I was the typical Debian crack addict apt-getting any application I wanted to check out on a whim. After living in Ottawa for years I was very well aware of the Corel (and later Rebel.com (who themselves were called Hardware Canada previously, and were a unix reseller) Netwinder , which was a cool little ARM based PC, which unfortunately suffered under the idiocy of Corel's managem

[ tons of tips and ideas what's possible with a Z follow ]

The 5500 and others are more like little Linux laptops then PDAs. While I am far from a typical PDA user, the absolutely INCREDIBLE stuff I can do with just a 5500 and a wireless card continues to astound me today. To be fair, I never bought a Zaurus with the intention of ever doing typical PDA like stuff, but just wanted an easy familiar environment to hack in.

Years ago I had a USR P1000 (The Palm 1000, before Palm bought it from US Robotics), and while it was a great PDA (for the day), it was underpowered for what I wanted and most importantly LACKED A KEYBOARD, which makes all the difference in the world. One day I worked an ENTIRE day with only my P1000, a ssh client and a (9600 baud) serial link to my cell phone to see just how doable it was. As a unix admin doing security work the P1000 did have SOME uses (serial console to Sun boxes, ssh client for accessing mail via Mutt, etc) but the end result was a less than productive day overall. Trying to edit files on unix boxes with vi using Graffiti was quite painful and I vowed I'd never buy another PDA until it had at least a minimal keyboard to work with.

Fast forward to my (now several years old) 5500. Shortly after getting it I wiped the original Sharp rom and replace it with the actively developed OpenZaurus distribution, and was very happy with the results.

I have a very portable linux box with wireless, nearly all the software I was using on Solaris and Linux, as well as the pretty Qtopia apps and a half-way decent environment. I've been able to get nice tools like nmap, p0f (Passive OS Fingerprinter), Kismet, and other excellent unix based tools working with minimal effort on the Z under OpenZaurus (and the a lesser extent the Sharp ROM). Under OZ I can compile and run MANY common exploit tools like the awesome Metasploit framework, which require perl, and to a less extent Python. Both are no big deal to get going on the Z, especially since the Z is binary compatible with the IPAQ based Familiar distribution, and usually just needs the odd library to get an app working. That's all fine for text based apps, but since OZ (using Opie, at least) is QT and not X based, a variety of GUI based apps don't easily run. There ARE solutions to getting X based apps to run with minimal fuss, including the original x11zaurus package, and more recently the excellent X/QT package, as well as simply running one of the versions of the vncserver for Zaurus which of course allows you to display X not only on your Z, but also on any other VNC compatible device (such such as you cell phone, Linux, Windows, etc).

More recently the GPE environment and projects has become available, and is offers an attractive alternative to Opie, but with X11 compatibility built in.

For me, I joined the Debian religion ~5-6 years ago after experimenting to see what all the fuss on /. was all about. It didn't take long before I was the typical Debian crack addict apt-getting any application I wanted to check out on a whim. After living in Ottawa for years I was very well aware of the Corel (and later Rebel.com (who themselves were called Hardware Canada previously, and were a unix reseller) Netwinder , which was a cool little ARM based PC, which unfortunately suffered under the idiocy of Corel's managem

That hasn't stopped various hackers from getting a demo working for the X5. If enough people are interested in these models, the hardware will be reverse-engineered and Linux ported.

Checkout the screenshoots of not just blackbox, but icewm, and KDE running on the iPaq. I think most would agree that KDE is a "desktop" level window manager. You can take debian .debs (for arm) and install them.

Debian suports ARM as one of it's many architectures, and has done since release 2.2 ('potato') was released in 2000. The current release is Debian 3.0 ('woody'). Whilst it nominally has equal status with other architectures it is fair to say that there remain some bugs in the ARM release and it can be hard to install on some platforms. Nevertheless it is an extremely useful resource for the technically competent user, allowing you to run a modern Linux on your ARM device."

I don't think anyone would complain about some modifications to OSX to fit the constraints of a PDA, as long as you could still run OSX and OS9 software on the PDA, right?

• Entirely based on XFree86's/keithp's Tiny-X server, which includes the latest RENDER extension.
• Anti-Aliased True-Type Font support in rxvt-aa, matchbox, and fltk (this is extended to any X application using the Xft APIs).
• Dropbear sshd included by default.
• The latest releases include JFFS2 support, which enables you to have read/write access to the iPAQ's Flash.
• Integrated Python v2.3 w/ PyGtk and PyGDKImlib.
• Binary and Library compatible w/ Debian's ARM distribution. In most cases, programs (as long as their dependencies are met) can be taken from Debian and executed on the iPAQ w/out issue.
• Full package support based on ipkg.
• Many system programs are implemented using busybox, saving much space.

• Entirely based on XFree86's/keithp's Tiny-X server, which includes the latest RENDER extension.
• Anti-Aliased True-Type Font support in rxvt-aa, matchbox, and fltk (this is extended to any X application using the Xft APIs).
• Dropbear sshd included by default.
• The latest releases include JFFS2 support, which enables you to have read/write access to the iPAQ's Flash.
• Integrated Python v2.3 w/ PyGtk and PyGDKImlib.
• Binary and Library compatible w/ Debian's ARM distribution. In most cases, programs (as long as their dependencies are met) can be taken from Debian and executed on the iPAQ w/out issue.
• Full package support based on ipkg.
• Many system programs are implemented using busybox, saving much space.

Handhelds.org is where most of the Pocket PC -> Linux action is these days. They are still working on getting Familiar (the main Pocket PC linux distro) on previous generation devices, such as the Dell X3 and the Ipaq 4100, so it could be a while before there is support for the 4705.

BTW, I have Familiar Linux with the Opie GUI on my Ipaq 3650, and its actually quite good.

In fact Familiar is partly based on Debian, using ipkg rather than apt / dpkg and command like:

ipkg update
ipkg upgrade

will do exactly what you expect them to, coming from a Debian environment. It's true that there aren't as many packages though - around 800-odd in the current unstable feed I think, which includes gpe, opie, and a fair amount of other stuff.

I'm very impressed with the OpenEmbedded build system too - it seems to be a very well-thought-out environment for cross-compiling to a customised image.

It may also be possible to go from a Familiar installation to a Debian one with a dchroot. I recently did that to convert from i386/woody to sarge/pure64 on an Opteron box, and it worked well.

sweet this could be cool ive been mucking about with linux on my ipaq i could use bluetooth/11b for comms and expose it to the world :) would you like to SSH to my roboto. no time for love Dr jones, got me a domestic to build :)

Well, I'd have to have my choice be the Ipaq 3650, since it has all the things I want - Open OS (has to be flashed in, but it can be done), PCMCIA(dual) expandability via sleeves (SD != open, no usb host on 3650, and allows for the use of 2.5" laptop drives via pcmcia enclosures as well as wifi), reasonable screen size (320x240), usable battery (even with dual pcmcia, at least 2hrs can be had) and even the use of keyboards via serial port are possible. The only thing that's been screwed up with them isnt even in that model, but down the line when HP lopped off the sleeve. When HP can make something with these features, I'll give them a look. Until then, I'll go for whomever brings back dual pcmcia and no SD.

Well, I'd have to have my choice be the Ipaq 3650, since it has all the things I want - Open OS (has to be flashed in, but it can be done), PCMCIA(dual) expandability via sleeves (SD != open, no usb host on 3650, and allows for the use of 2.5" laptop drives via pcmcia enclosures as well as wifi), reasonable screen size (320x240), usable battery (even with dual pcmcia, at least 2hrs can be had) and even the use of keyboards via serial port are possible. The only thing that's been screwed up with them isnt even in that model, but down the line when HP lopped off the sleeve. When HP can make something with these features, I'll give them a look. Until then, I'll go for whomever brings back dual pcmcia and no SD.

Well, I'd have to have my choice be the Ipaq 3650, since it has all the things I want - Open OS (has to be flashed in, but it can be done), PCMCIA(dual) expandability via sleeves (SD != open, no usb host on 3650, and allows for the use of 2.5" laptop drives via pcmcia enclosures as well as wifi), reasonable screen size (320x240), usable battery (even with dual pcmcia, at least 2hrs can be had) and even the use of keyboards via serial port are possible. The only thing that's been screwed up with them isnt even in that model, but down the line when HP lopped off the sleeve. When HP can make something with these features, I'll give them a look. Until then, I'll go for whomever brings back dual pcmcia and no SD.

Linux runs on an X5. Still work to do, but it's almost useable.
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/DellAximX5
http://www.handhelds.org/projects/axim.html
http://www.handhelds.org/handhelds-faq/handhelds-f aq.html

Now if it worked on a Tungsten T3, my wishlist would be fulfilled.

Linux runs on an X5. Still work to do, but it's almost useable.
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/DellAximX5
http://www.handhelds.org/projects/axim.html
http://www.handhelds.org/handhelds-faq/handhelds-f aq.html

Now if it worked on a Tungsten T3, my wishlist would be fulfilled.

Linux runs on an X5. Still work to do, but it's almost useable.
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/DellAximX5
http://www.handhelds.org/projects/axim.html
http://www.handhelds.org/handhelds-faq/handhelds-f aq.html

Now if it worked on a Tungsten T3, my wishlist would be fulfilled.

whether palm or ms

Just like theres no Linux on desktops?

Right.

Stupid troll.

Because we want to poke the PocketPC fans a bit more and have them use things like Linux Handhelds, OpenZaurus (and their successor OpenEmbedded instead of that freakin OS with mostly costly apps that few people use. Basically, that's what drove me away from Palm....

Now having DotGNU ported to OpenZaurus/OpenEmbedded would be very purty and with OpenEmbedded, it might even work with Linuxed iPaqs one day.

Can you point me to a good summary of the status of Linux on iPAQ?

Sure, check out the FAQ's on handhelds.org. There's plenty of good sites out there to keep you reading.

About WiFi support, I've had good success using a compact flash prism2-based 802.11b card. One of my roommates uses an orinoco gold pc card for wifi on his linux ipaq.

Can you point me to a good summary of the status of Linux on iPAQ?

Sure, check out the FAQ's on handhelds.org. There's plenty of good sites out there to keep you reading.

About WiFi support, I've had good success using a compact flash prism2-based 802.11b card. One of my roommates uses an orinoco gold pc card for wifi on his linux ipaq.

I run Familiar linux on my iPaq. My ipaq has a mere 32 megs of flash ram. While this is enough for familiar, X, and a few applications, it gets filled up quickly. Once you start adding lots of packages, that 32 megs gets filled up very quickly. In order to get more space, I move all the binaries to an SD card.

Having 2 gigs available to store packages, not to mention music and even movies would be fantastic, especially for long trips.

The Zaurus is a tiny linux box. A powerful, tiny linux box. The first thing you should do when you get a Z is wipe the OS and instead install the excellent OpenZaurus (OZ). OZ is better than the original Linux install in nearly every respect. Don't think of your Z as a PDA, it's more like a tiny laptop. Some of the things I do with mine:

email: I recently compiled Mutt with a IMAP header cache patch. One of the most powerful email clients in the palm of my hand :-)

wireless sniffing: As you know, Kismet rules the land of wireless sniffers. Pop a wireless card in your Z (or get a 6000 :-) and your neighbours will never be safe again :-)

mp3/ogg playing: Using either Opie-Player2 or the excellent tkcplayer. Unfortunatly, I can't use the tkcplayer on the very latest version of OpenZaurus, not because it won't run (because it DOES almost start up when using "runcompat" but then tells me it can't run on this platform-- which it CAN otherwise it wouldn't be able to tell me that :-) TKC are you listening? Remove the check please :-)

Video playing: using a port of the best linux movie player mplayer. I've encoded a bunch of movies down to ~200MB with great results. You can pop a couple of these on a 512MB card for those long flights :-)

Coding: Of course, I've got gcc and perl loaded on the puppy. Hell, without perl I wouldn't be able to run Chaosreader, makes those long hotel stays much more interesting :-)

Exploit testing :-) Since perl and gcc work fine, I really haven't run into any common exploits I can't compile or run properly.

A couple of hints and tricks:

1) If you want to extend your battery life while doing things like mp3 playing or wardriving, grab something like Qoverclock and use it to UNDERCLOCK your Z. Turn down (or off) the display as well. Poke at it a bit and realize you can easily make a shell script to do without the GUI.

2) To maximize your space on root, ram, sd and cf, the single best thing to use is UCLX which works just like UPX. UCLX/UPX are executeable file compressors-- you compress your executable and when you run it it decompresses (to ram) on the fly. The compression it uses is AT LEAST as good as gzip (or better) and the decompression is very fast. When using slower media like SD (or even CF) you'll find that executables will run FASTER compressed then they would uncompressed-- the CPU can decompress much smaller exe faster than the much larger uncompressed exe could be loaded from media and run.

3) When choosing a root/ram disk size for OpenZaurus, it's a good idea to pick a small root with a much larger ram disk. If (when) you need more ram, you can simply make some ramdisk swap files.

4) While you can run gcc right on the Z, it's also nice to us a cross compiler on your (much faster) desktop and then just cp the binary over. If you're too lazy to do cross compiles (or don't want to set up a ton of additional packages like ncurses, etc), you can also just ssh into the IPAQ development cluster and compile your code there. Typically it will run without issue-- sometimes you may want/need to statically link your programs or just grab the libraries from the ipaq and throw 'em on your Z. I haven't found a single thing yet I couldn't get to run.

5) Assuming you grab the required libraries, you can run basically all of the sw in th