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"Linux wil run on most, if not all desktop computers currently running Windows."

In fact, Linux runs on about 23 additional architectures that Microsoft can't even remotely support with their most-flexible embedded target.

• Diverse PDA / embedded / microcontroller / router devices:
  • Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd. ARM family (StrongARM SA-1110, XScale, ARM6, ARM7, ARM2, ARM250, ARM3i, ARM610, ARM710, ARM720T, and ARM920T)
  • Analog Devices, Inc.'s Blackfin DSP
  • Axis Communications ETRAX series ("CRIS" = Code Reduced Instruction Set RISC architecture)
  • Elan SC520 and SC300
  • Fujitsu FR-V
  • Hitachi H8 series
  • Intel i960
  • Intel IA32-compatibles (Cyrix MediaGX, STMicroelectronics STPC, ZF Micro ZFx86)
  • Matsushita AM3x
  • MIPS-compatibles (Toshiba TMPRxxxx / TXnnnn, NEC VR series, Realtek 8181)
  • Motorola 680x0-based machines (Motorola VMEbus boards, ISICAD Prisma machines, and Motorola Dragonball & ColdFire CPUs, and Cisco 2500/3000/4000 series routers)
  • Motorola embedded PowerPC (including MPC / PowerQUICC I, II, III families)
  • NEC V850E
  • Renesas Technology (formerly Hitachi) SH3/SH4 (SuperH: link1 link2)
  • Samsung CalmRISC
  • Texas Instruments's DM64x and C54x DSP families
• Intel 8086 / 80286 .
• Intel IA32 family: i386, i486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III, Xeon, and Pentium IV processors, as well as IA32 clones from AMD, Cyrix, VIA, IDT, Winchip, NexGen, Transmeta, VIA C3 Ezra "CentaurHauls", and others.
• Intel/HP IA64: Trillian/Itanium/Itanium2
• AMD x86-64 Hammer family (including AMD Opteron)
• Motorola 68020-68040 series (with MMU): m68k Mac, Amiga, Atari ST/TT/Medusa/Falcon, HP/Apollo Domain, HP9000/300, sun3, and Sinclair Q40.
• Motorola/IBM PowerPC family: Most PowerMac (including G3/G4/G5) / CHRP / PReP / POP, Amiga PowerUP System, and IBM PPC64 (AS/400, RS/6000).
• MIPS

"How about a LAPTOP sized appliance , No hard drive, network capablity, guts could be based on one of the small PDA units, for card compatibility etc, only with a full sized keyboard and screen, it's be LIGHT, CHEAP, and battery life could be pretty amazing. Do most anything you need whilst mobile. email, documents editing, etc. LINUX based of course :)"

You are describing the batch of fullsize HPC WinCE device that came out in 1999 at the $1000 price point, the best of which were Vadem Clio or the Sharp Mobilon Tripad. Generally they had a 640x480 screen, full size keyboard, touch screen, and all day battery life. On the down side they had slow processors and only 16 or 32 MB RAM (which you split between memory and storage) and WinCE as the OS but that at least could be changed. While it didn't have a network jack, but it did have a PCMCIA slot.

I haven't seen a refresh of this form factor come it out since, probably since the drop in notebook prices into the sub $1000 range has squeezed these out of profitably. It would be interesting though to see one of these with a lot more memory.

This is not all that new, but I didn't see it here yet so... Agenda Computing has fired its CEO, Bradley LaRonde for unspecified reasons. For those who don't know, Mr. LaRonde was directly responsible for the first linux-from-scratch PDA, the Agenda VR3 as well as Linux-VR which is at the heart of the VR3. He still continues to develop for the platform AFAIK, but wasn't ever told why he was fired. Sad news for the linux PDA community.

How about one of these?

There are no loud fans and no loud disks. Power-up is almost instant. Full networking support is available, is tremendously compact (while still having a large, readable display), and it has an available Linux Port.

Bit longer answer... Yes, you get source...you can browse the CVS tree from the developer site. There are FAQs on building apps...heck, as sold, it's X! The cross-compiler tools are readily available at the Linux VR site. Another good Agenda development site is here.

Potential?? TONS. X is pretty heavy on the thing...so I'm probably not gonna use it! I'm working on setting up a rootdisk with Microwindows, an OSS windowing environment that's a lot lighter-weight than X. Still in development, but I think there's a lot of promise there. If you can still get into the Developer's Program rates, you can get an Agenda for $179. (I got one for that price two weeks ago). As a hacker, you Cannot Beat That. It's awesome...I'm running a full-fledged Linux box in my hand, and I have total control, source, development tools, etc. It may not be ready for the Masses yet...but we aren't exactly the Masses now, are we?? *grin*

So what advantage does this PDA have over all the other VR PDAs? I don't see anything about the hardware that's more "Linuxy" than a PDA designed for CE. OK, they're really cheap now, but unless Advantage has a secret way to manufacture PDAs cheaper than anybody else, that won't last past the attract-the-developers phase.

So what's the point? Just because it's "designed for Linux"?

__

If you're interested in putting Linux on PDAs, you might look at this stuff too:
handhelds.org: Putting Linux on iPAQ and Nino
linuxce.org: Developing a Linux Kernel for WinCE devices
linux-vr.org : running linux on your VR series device
uclinux.org: linux/microcontroller project
Yopy: Samsung's pre-installed Linux PDA with color/sound.

hope this helps the interested.

wish
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