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The things that a "killer" features for PDA's (by my standard) are:

• Useable keyboard: Ok, this is more approaching a palmtop, but it's a nice feature.
• Minimum bluetooth connectivity
• Wifi (or ability to use expansion slot for wifi).
• Linux/Mac connectivity

I just discovered the ultra-spiffy Sony Clie UX-50. This little baby just appeared here in Australia, and has a few things which'd make any geek drool. Built-in Wifi/Bluetooth, 640x480 screen, Wifi hotspot scanner software, USB, camera, microphone. Take a look at the pictures, it is damn nice.

I'm currently trying to figure out exactly what I need a PDA for, so I can make an appropriate purchase. As I do late-night support on occassion, I need a PDA that can do SSH, GPRS over bluetooth (via my bluetooth phone), and if possible, have some sort of keyboard (Some of the Sony models have nice ones).

Looking at the SL6000 screenshots, it looks like they have made the keyboard a bit more friendly, but I'm not sure what else has changed. If you want the QTopia environment on your PDA, you can get one of the relatively cheap iPaq's and install OPIE on it. Still, it looks like a great device to hack on.

Now, please excuse me while I go back to drooling over PDA's.

umm,
what about this?

or this?

Does anyone own a Zaurus? How useful are they really?

I own a Zaurus SL-5500: the "original" US market unit (as opposed to the original developer's unit, the SL-5000, which was basically the same thing with half the RAM). I'll say this: you can have it... when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Two reasons it rocks:

• The keyboard. The primary reason this is 10x more efficient than (most) palm devices: I can type very quickly on the build-in "hidden" keyboard. Yes, the Zaurus has something like PalmOS's Graffiti. In fact, the Z's recognizer is more sophisticated and accurate, and can learn any strokes you teach it. I still use the keyboard.
• Linux. No, I do not use my Z as a "hacking tool" or "geek toy" primarily. I've written a test app for it or so, but that's it. (Doing so is incredibly easy, actually, but I haven't had a lot of time to spend on it.) I bought my Zaurus as a PDA, and that's what I use it for. Since I use Linux exclusively on the desktop, having it on the PDA is extremely natural, not to mention making things extremely flexible. I find syncing silly. I prefer ssh, scp, or (with the newer ROM) smbclient (which is like a braindead ftp, but it works). If I needed syncing, I would use rsync. It just fits very naturally into my work environment.

Some people complain about the PIM apps; the quality varies. The Todo List and Address Book aren't great, but I don't use the former and the latter is sufficient. The Text Pad, however, is pretty handy, and Opera (which even renders slashdot well!) and Hancomsheet (a fully-blown spreadsheet!) are killer apps for me.

The only reason I don't upgrade to a CL-760 is the fact I can't justify the cost: my Z works great as-is. With the work on OpenZaurus and Opie, the PIM issues are being solved, and I have little chance of being left with a "dead" platform.

Did anyone else notice that the Wow Signal looks strangely like the Matrix?

That's plain creepy, if you ask me.

X11 worked fine on 20MHz 68k workstations with 4Mbytes of RAM. In the days of 400MHz PDAs with 64M+ of RAM, there really is no need to "replace" X11, in particular given their stamp-sized screens. And because X11 is neutral on policy, unlike other window systems, you can build a great handheld or embedded environment on top of it. In practice, of course, X11 is already more efficient in both memory and speed than either Qt/Embedded or the Windows GDI, so it is also hard to see why people think they can do better.

Besides, there is another problem with GPL'ed toolkits: the competition lets commercial developers develop for free. GPL'ed toolkits and window systems are no good: any Linux-based PDA is only going to succeed widely if commercial developers can develop for it for free. That's a bargain free software has always been making (e.g., you can develop commercial software with gcc for Linux and not open source it). Toolkits need to have licenses like LGPL, X11, or BSD.

So, please forget about all this "GPL'ed embedded toolkit" nonsense. Use X11 and one of several embedded toolkits for handheld development: wxWindows, FLTK, or GPE.

The default XFree86 port to handhelds, of course, has a lot of useless overhead in it because it is just a recompilation of a desktop server. That can be reduced, but you don't need to invent a new, incompatible window system to do it. An embedded X11 server can probably be stripped down to 100-200k. That is where the effort of people looking to create "efficient" embedded servers should be directed.

I've said this everytime an article on yet another embedded framebuffer attempt is posted. While embedded solutions like MiniGUI and QT/Embedded seem like great ideas, they both suffer from the same problems. First off, all though I love the GPL and wish that everything were GPL'd, in the case of the windowing system/widget set, the GPL is not appropriate. LGPL is more appropriate. Because the widget set is part of the windowing envirnoment, you can't write code under any other license for the environment, because it's GPL'd. This right away will limit MiniGUI's viability, because for most embedded developes, it will not be an option. QT/Embedded, of course can be purchased to avoid this issue.

Secondly, like all embedded framebuffer attempts, this one yet again reinvents the wheel, defining a windowing system, event-handling, input-handling and so forth. And of course only programs using that exact API can run on this environment. This is a significant restriction that I find rather suffocating when I am using OPIE on my Zaurus.

For many devices, including handhelds, the best solution is still venerable X11. Keith Packard's KDrive server is completely self-contained (font support, XRender support) and weighs in at just 700 kb. Run a lightweight environment such as matchbox on top of that (wonderful window manager designed for handhelds) with a nice light widget set, and you have all the same features as this MiniGUI without the restrictions it imposes. See what the gpe people have done with this. It's impressive. In such an X11-based environment, MiniGUI could be viable because it wouldn't exclude any other toolkits or APIs from being used.

The final problem I see with MiniGUI is that code appears more complicated and MS-ish than QT or GTK. Clearly the developers come from a win32 background, as MiniGUI code is full of win32-isms, which I find harder to program and less elegant than the Signal/Slot mechanisms of QT and GTK.

Clearly, with or without X11 you need to change the widget look and behavior from that on a desktop. The idea of "windows" becomes less important as full-screen is the only desirable mode. Modifying the input mechanism is also important. Things that we take for granted on desktops such as right-clicking don't translate well to a handheld. QT/E and gpe solve this by having the user hold his stylus on the widget for a couple of seconds to emulate the right-mouse-button-click.

There is no perfect system, and MiniGUI appears to be yet another attempt and I'm sure has a valid niche to fill. I wish them well.

More complaints about PDA GUIs:

Scroll bars for these things are retarded. Especially when viewing web pages that require horizontal scrolling. It is no fun at all to have to use a pen to point at a teeny scroll bar at the bottom and drag it back and forth to read a couple of sentences, and then move the pen to a teeny scroll bar on the right to have to move to the next sentence. PDA web browsers/document viewers should take a hint from GhostView and allow a pen click & drag anywhere on the screen drag the page around. Targets should also be large enough such that you can use your index finger to accurately touch them.

As to "GPLed QT alternatives", there's also Opie.

Information here, pics here.

Information here, pics here.

I think this will be useful only for desktops actually. Embedded devices do not usually run as many services as desktops. And the embedded Linux implementations seem to boot plenty fast as it is.
For example, my Linksys WAP boots up in about 10 seconds.
For a better embedded example, look at a Compaq iPAQ H3650 circa 3 years ago running Familiar Linux with the Opie desktop. It boots up in about 8 seconds. Then it's "instant" on/off unless you hard reset the device. It's also running more services than the default install.

I think this will be useful only for desktops actually. Embedded devices do not usually run as many services as desktops. And the embedded Linux implementations seem to boot plenty fast as it is.
For example, my Linksys WAP boots up in about 10 seconds.
For a better embedded example, look at a Compaq iPAQ H3650 circa 3 years ago running Familiar Linux with the Opie desktop. It boots up in about 8 seconds. Then it's "instant" on/off unless you hard reset the device. It's also running more services than the default install.

I use it every day for calendar syncing and Geocaching but I think it's nearly worthless for useful things.

(I admit the things I use my iPAQ most for, in terms of clock time spent, are listening to music, reading ebooks, and playing games. But since that prevents me having to schlep other stuff around, I find it "useful".)

Anybody interested in Linux on iPAQ should check out handhelds.org . Be warned that it's limited in what hardware it works on (and has various quirks on most of them), and the Gtk-based PIM apps are still very young. (The Opie-based - QT-embedded - ones are more mature, because they're based on the ones that ship with the Zaurus, but I depend on X11.)

The part that you don't mention is that there are so many warnings about "bricking" your iPaq that it's an extremely harrowing experience even if you know pretty much what you're doing. I've done the Familiar Linux thing with my iPaq 3150 - it was not at all fun the first time.

So, yes, hardened geeks who are fearless will not have too much of an issue putting Familiar on their iPaq. However, more casual users will certainly balk at this, especially on the more expensive iPaq variants.

Not all the quirks are worked out, either. There's no viable SD driver. Software support is somewhat lacking (no xmms-e!). Opie only recently released a 1.0 release, too.

More info at Handhelds.org.

-Erwos

Qtopia is fine on my Sharp Zaurus SL5000D, but OpenZaurus (with Opie) is really better (and Free) in my opinion. It's more polished, more mature and better documented.
I don't really need the few software Qtopia has over OZ (Opera, Handcom Office Suite, ..) since there are free alternative (Konqueror, etc).

Good to see Free forks can compete and sometimes overtake the original commercial software.

If you have a Zaurus, you really have to try OpenZaurus !

Xine? (Well in my opinion, xine is too buggy, crashes on most files and its gui sucks)

• Totem (for GNOME)
• Kaffine (for KDE3)
• OpiePlayer2 (for handhelds even!)

gpe.
-russ

Try Matchbox.

honestly, until these suckers run a nice free software gui i see no compelling reason to stop using palmos devices.

umm....ever heard of opie?

... sync with iSync, and sync with something on Linux.

I wonder if "Opie" will make an appearance in commercial hardware anytime soon... it started as a fork of the QTopia environment, and is coming along nicely. It would be really cool to have Opie become the standard palmtop environment.

This is way off.

1) Qtopia doesnt have any SD code in it. None. That's all handeled outside of it. Qtopia and OPIE use whatever hardware your kernel can support. Sharp and Lineo put together a binary only driver for the zaurus. Handhelds.org Have an open source driver available.

2) The problem with DVD and SD aren't with patents they were trade secrets. The only way you were able to get the information on how to set up the device was to sign an NDA saying you wont disclose that information. Someone was able to dig up the necessary info with only publically avaialable documention, so now we have an open source driver.

To me, Opie just seems pointless. Being based on Qt/Embedded, the Opie environment only runs Qt applications, so most UNIX GUI apps don't work on it. And being a GPL'ed fork of Qt/Embedded, people may not even be able to ever develop commercial software for it even if they were willing to pay Troll Tech's licensing fees.

Now, if Opie were a great self-contained PIM suite, maybe it could survive on that alone. Unfortunately, it isn't: even the cheapest Palm is a much more effective and convenient PIM than the Opie environment.

As far as I'm concerned, GPE is a more interesting project. It may not be as mature as Opie yet, but in the end, it will be more useful. If Linux has a future on handhelds at all, I think it will be based on Gtk+ and X11, not Qt/Embedded.

Because the current iPAQs are way better than the current Zaurus. (Or at least the Zaurus models readily available in Europe and the USA.)

For instance, I'm currently looking into getting a iPaq 19xx series PDA. It's extremely light-weight - I think it weighs about half as much as the Zaurus - and is also smaller than most of the other PDAs. Much in the same vein as the entry-level Toshibas (e3xx), with the difference that "good progress is being made" by the familiar developers in porting familiar to the h19xx family of devices. I'm not aware of any such movements to get Linux on a Toshiba PDA, sadly, and I did look for it.

Okay, and that's just one part of the PDA market, the entry-level market with it's low scale PDAs. iPADs also dominate the (very) high-end market, and have done so for years. The recently released 22xx series is just mean. Of course there are other great PDAs, including the Zaurus models mainly available in Japan, but the iPADs have been bleeding edge for a long time now. And they are the only PocketPC PDAs which can be flashed to Linux - my hat is off in regard to the familiar developers, but also to the Compaq/HP engineers that, if I recall correctly, helped familiar off a great start.

From their website under "Sync Data With The Desktop" it says:

KitchenSync...

KitchenSync is the Synchronisation Framework for KDE 3.1. At present, one can synchronize directory, Todolist and Calendar. In the future it will be possible with KitchenSync to sync data with other computers, or also with Handys like the S45. to the fact comes that one can save konqueror directly on devices. So one will be able directly out konqueror files on CF, SD, to copy or RAM.

Qtopia Desktop

is Trolltech's sync software TrollTech ftp

IntelliSync
[there's nothing under IntelliSync]

From their website under "Sync Data With The Desktop" it says:

KitchenSync...

KitchenSync is the Synchronisation Framework for KDE 3.1. At present, one can synchronize directory, Todolist and Calendar. In the future it will be possible with KitchenSync to sync data with other computers, or also with Handys like the S45. to the fact comes that one can save konqueror directly on devices. So one will be able directly out konqueror files on CF, SD, to copy or RAM.

Qtopia Desktop

is Trolltech's sync software TrollTech ftp

IntelliSync
[there's nothing under IntelliSync]

Since this is a qt portable related anouncement, I figure people would be interested in it's gtk equivalent.

GPE or the "GPE Palmtop Environment" aims to provide a Free Software GUI environment for palmtop/handheld computers running the GNU/Linux(TM) operating system. GPE uses the X Window System, and the GTK+-2.2 widget toolkit.

They have their own nifty screenshots.

Since this is a qt portable related anouncement, I figure people would be interested in it's gtk equivalent.

GPE or the "GPE Palmtop Environment" aims to provide a Free Software GUI environment for palmtop/handheld computers running the GNU/Linux(TM) operating system. GPE uses the X Window System, and the GTK+-2.2 widget toolkit.

They have their own nifty screenshots.

Slashdot didn't link to it, and neither did linuxdevices.com, so I just thought I'd say that the Opie homepage is here.

• Matchbox WM + A Touchscreen = User Interface.
• Go read Handhelds.org - Linux has been doing small screens for ages. Combine it with exisiting media apps like xmms and mplayer and you're a long way there already. Maybe WinXP isn't ideal, but there's plenty of other stuff that is. Try to think outside the windows your mind is trapped in.

• Matchbox WM + A Touchscreen = User Interface.
• Go read Handhelds.org - Linux has been doing small screens for ages. Combine it with exisiting media apps like xmms and mplayer and you're a long way there already. Maybe WinXP isn't ideal, but there's plenty of other stuff that is. Try to think outside the windows your mind is trapped in.

OpenEmbedded is the consolidation process of the different Linux PDA & Embedded solutions.
Linux PDA projects like OpenZaurus, and the Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (OPIE) will lead to more flexible and widely supported Linux platforms. Just have a peek at the long list of Linux supported platforms: HP iPaqs, Dell Axim's, Sharp Zaurus, Samsung's Yopy, Siemens SIMpad's, etc...

OpenEmbedded is the consolidation process of the different Linux PDA & Embedded solutions.
Linux PDA projects like OpenZaurus, and the Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (OPIE) will lead to more flexible and widely supported Linux platforms. Just have a peek at the long list of Linux supported platforms: HP iPaqs, Dell Axim's, Sharp Zaurus, Samsung's Yopy, Siemens SIMpad's, etc...

Of course, if KDE's not your cup of tea, you can always go for just the core libs, and Xstroke. No recompiling required, and it works with any X app. I'm sure similar functionality is available in Windows as well. You just gotta look.

There's also Intimate.

Now, to go waste my paycheck buying a CF card & reader, whoop!

Actually, it's running Opie, or Open Palmtop Integrated Environment, which is an improved clone of Qtopia. Opie IS open source, and really much better than it's older brother.

Before I read the article I thought the submitter was having fun poking RedHat (or in the case of slashdot... gentoo), not stating the actual distro used, but just saying that it's very familiar.

Who would have thought (besides those who actually does dev stuff on handhelds) that there actually is such thing as Familiar Linux!

with This Or, you can use the DevCluster at handhelds.org.

Don't discount Linux's hardware advantages. Linux runs on pretty much everything. Leveraged correctly, this can mean that you'll be able to run the same exact environment on all your computing hardware, from your PDA to your desktop at home, and workstation at the office. Operating environments such as KDE on the Desktop end, and its portable counterpart, OPIE, are pretty similar from a user interface perspective, which offers great usability advantages, even factoring in the UI inconsistencies in KDE. Jobs' ego rush to kill the newton is going to come back to bite him on the ass, as Linux's capabilities as a digital hub are used to their fullest potential.

I prefer to buy an iPaq and then install something like Familiar installed on it. And I'm more productive with it since I don't have to go looking for a Windows machine for half an hour and annoy myself beyond recognition.

Else, my other PDA runs on OpenZaurus, but there's no WinCE version for it, possibly a lucky coincidence. And I'm more productive with OpenZaurus than with WinCE which does not even have something like a shell, or even a real keyboard and handwriting recognition.

And I can emulate the greatest computer ever on the Zaurus - the Amiga classic. No WinCE can offer me that, and Palm neither.

Apparently it's economically feasable to sell a PDA with WinCE (pronounce like prince) on it and develop linux to run on the side!

A check out handhelds.org for info on that one. Yes, you can run linux on Compaq, pardon me, HP, iPAQs. Yes it runs pretty well. Oh, and yes we run X11 just fine thank you (and my X server itself is about 800-900kB, not too shabby).

If X11 isn't for you, you can of course run OPIE (basically an opensource fork of QPE, which is what runs on the Zaurus). Still works great.

Oh, and as for feasability, take a look at the Zaurus. They still make them, don't they?

Just use familiar with opie. You'll be happier, and have more spare change to buy things that matter.

I dont know what do you use your handhled for but i think GPE is much better than Opie, it runs inside the mini X server so you can do a lot of leet stuff like running Xine and Snes9x for Linux.

Just use familiar with opie. You'll be happier, and have more spare change to buy things that matter.

Just use familiar with opie. You'll be happier, and have more spare change to buy things that matter.

Yes, you are right, it is not a linux version, it won't run on PS2 and Zaurus! Let's not forget all the other linux devices! Down with Never Winter Nights! Only support TRUE linux developers!

Now that I got that sarcasm out of my system, may I suggest that anyone who wants to see more Linux games buy NWN, even if you won't play it. I am not into that game, but I feel that I should support it, so I am buying the Linux version.

If it does well enough, it might convince other developers to make linux versions of their games.

Then through hope and the grace of God we might be free of the Microsoft beast!

Or am I just crazy?

Side note: Never buy Microsoft Windows 666.

Well, it use to be free and work in wince⦠Looks like IBM continues the care and feeding of itâ(TM)s J2ME / IDE combo that works on something other than a cell phone. (now Websphere Studio Device Developer, use to be VisualAge ME)
The good news (and bad) is it is a full commercial offering, and I know there are other ones out there... Iâ(TM)m of the camp that Sun should produce reference JDKâ(TM)s rather than commercial / performance ones â" especially on the J2EE side. Way back when, I remember Sun seemed to be more worried about license revenue than shipping something compelling. Perhaps they did not want to compete with the partners⦠A functional SDK is nice, but not needed from them â" there are others.

For me, I got seduced back into c/c++ when I dropped Familiar Linux on my pocket pc. Never went back.

• xscribble -- a Graffiti-like text input tool.
• gsumi -- a writing/drawing utility.

I've got an iPaq that runs Familiar Linux, and it's a great mobile hacking and experimentation platform. True, I wouldn't want to write full apps with the tiny onscreen keyboard, but it's nice to be able to either try out an algorithm or quick script idea in Python on a full-featured Linux system that fits in a coat pocket. If I had the extra couple of hundred dollars lying around, I'd definitely make the switch to one of the WinCE devices with even a tiny keyboard, and probably be able to use for for most of the tasks I'd normally assign to either my PDA or laptop.

Personally, at least, I've found that at least 80% of my time on either kind of portable device map fine into basic console tools: mutt for email, links or w3m for quick web browsing, and remote server administration via ssh, and a bit of Ruby scripting here are there. Not too much there that requires a GUI, (even if I liked the WinCE UI, which I don't) or support for the huge library of mediocre shareware and Windows-specific integration and synchronization that seem to dominate the PalmOS market.

For those of you out there who own a Compaq/HP iPAQ, and would like to run an Open-source OS on it, it is currently possibly to run Linux on it, thanks to HP's Cambridge Research Labs, and of course many contributors around the world. For more, please visit Handhelds.org. (For what it's worth, I am the person who is porting Linux to the iPAQ h1910 - and no, I am not paid by HP.)

~pi/joshua/nontoxic/whatever

I was thinking a similiar thing 'till I read some of the information on handhelds.org, and between wanting to have either a nic or wireless nic on my handheld eitherway, its not that much of a pain to setup one of the small ftp servers on it.

I just bought a Zaurus 5500 on eBay and are waiting for it to be shipped up to me, but I have been scouting around on the net about it.

The first task for me will to be to get a CF memory card and install Open Zaurus and Opie on my Zaurus and get rid of QTopia, which is good but the Opie/OpenZaurus combo turns the Zaurus into something that I think fits my needs.

I realize that I am not a normal user, so the QTopia environment and standard applications need to be improved so they can compete with everything else.

like this cluster of Compaq iPaqs?