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The chip has a full speed FPU. More information on the AES support can be found in this interview, previously reported on slashdot...

http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2656883479.html

--ralpht

I've been researching chipsets for digital TV. Here are my links to current hardware products:

STMicroelectronics System on Chip (2) Get Linux here
ATI Xilleon 220 (Products)
Sigma Designs Digital Media Processors (Products)
IBM PowerPC405 STBxx (Zarlink [2], Araneo)
Texas Instruments DM642 DSP (i3 Mood Box , X-Designs Flikit + Softier MediaLinux)
NEC EMMArchitecture2 (Galaxis + LinuxTV , PRISMIQ + Linux)
Equator Technologies BSP-15 boards
Via CN400 (Mini-ITX Board), PM800 and PM880 (w/ HDTV for Pentium 4) , ShowShifter HMN, Soyo Multimedia Ready Motherboard (with TV Tuner, $129.99)
Toshiba TX System RISC (MontaVista Linux)
Windows chipsets:
Intel 815 VisionPlus terrestrial box (Korean OEM)
AMD Geode (CoCom)
ARM (Samsung, etc.)
Digeo X-Stream (Paul Allen company)

I've been researching chipsets for digital TV. Here are my links to current hardware products:

STMicroelectronics System on Chip (2) Get Linux here
ATI Xilleon 220 (Products)
Sigma Designs Digital Media Processors (Products)
IBM PowerPC405 STBxx (Zarlink [2], Araneo)
Texas Instruments DM642 DSP (i3 Mood Box , X-Designs Flikit + Softier MediaLinux)
NEC EMMArchitecture2 (Galaxis + LinuxTV , PRISMIQ + Linux)
Equator Technologies BSP-15 boards
Via CN400 (Mini-ITX Board), PM800 and PM880 (w/ HDTV for Pentium 4) , ShowShifter HMN, Soyo Multimedia Ready Motherboard (with TV Tuner, $129.99)
Toshiba TX System RISC (MontaVista Linux)
Windows chipsets:
Intel 815 VisionPlus terrestrial box (Korean OEM)
AMD Geode (CoCom)
ARM (Samsung, etc.)
Digeo X-Stream (Paul Allen company)

I've been researching chipsets for digital TV. Here are my links to current hardware products:

STMicroelectronics System on Chip (2) Get Linux here
ATI Xilleon 220 (Products)
Sigma Designs Digital Media Processors (Products)
IBM PowerPC405 STBxx (Zarlink [2], Araneo)
Texas Instruments DM642 DSP (i3 Mood Box , X-Designs Flikit + Softier MediaLinux)
NEC EMMArchitecture2 (Galaxis + LinuxTV , PRISMIQ + Linux)
Equator Technologies BSP-15 boards
Via CN400 (Mini-ITX Board), PM800 and PM880 (w/ HDTV for Pentium 4) , ShowShifter HMN, Soyo Multimedia Ready Motherboard (with TV Tuner, $129.99)
Toshiba TX System RISC (MontaVista Linux)
Windows chipsets:
Intel 815 VisionPlus terrestrial box (Korean OEM)
AMD Geode (CoCom)
ARM (Samsung, etc.)
Digeo X-Stream (Paul Allen company)

No, uCLinux doesn't support the 8086, but try ELKS. (reference)

At least 5 of the top 10 systems are running Linux, starting at number two with Thunder at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The others are IBM BlueGene/L clusters at places #4 and #8, Tungsten at NCSA at #5, MPP2 at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at #9, and probably also the Dawning 4000A at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center as #10, though I'm not 100% sure about this last one.

When the Dreamcast first came out, I abhorred it for a number of reasons, such as lackluster 1st party games, poor 3rd party support and just a general disdain for Sega's marketing (their track record isn't so hot in that department). But right now, I'm loving the Dreamcast :-)

Right about now, the Dreamcast is somewhat prematurely in its "glory day". While most Dreamcast games sucked to no end, it had many decent PC ports (Quake III, Unreal Tournament) and a handful of other good games. Generally, you can find these games in the bargain bin at GameStop for $5-$15, usually new. The Dreamcast's current online pricepoint is often less than a new GBA game, and usually is bundled with some games. Frankly, if you're a cheap gamer who doesn't have a lot of time, the Dreamcast is the way to go.

But the main appeal of the Dreamcast to me is the "geek" community that's brought Linux, BSD and most of the APIs that they connonate (Hell, you can even use Windows APIs for the built in Windows CE ROM). This is great for people like me who want to get their feet wet with basic game development for consoles, but don't have time to learn a hacked-up graphics API, or for someone who just is looking for a fun weekend project. It makes me happy to see that the Dreamcast homebrew community is still alive and kicking, and I'm hoping that this kind of thing will continue for a while.

From the article :

"The 3D mapping interface shows actual buildings, and knows street addresses, enabling it to identify destination addresses. In the picture at right, it has identified a gas station belonging to a promotional partner. Advertising for many other businesses, such as fast food outlets, appears to be built into the maps."

More information is available here and here.

Kind of weird that they don't play up the fact it runs linux more.

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.

Maybe the Gumstick, though it's far smaller than a credit card (more the size of a stick of gum, hence its name).

Phillip.

I remember spotting a computer, probably a link off of LinuxDevices, that was the size of a credit card. It was mostly SMT solder-down components with a mini-PCI-like card connector at one end that was used to connect to a daughtercard full of ports and whatnot. I went looking for it yesterday, but couln't find it. Any ideas? I wanted to imagine a Beowulf cluster of them, but needed a visual reference for aid.

There is an older dual-nic version, the
VIA EPIA CL-Series. It's only 600mhz but that's lots faster than the old compaq deskpro that i'm currently using for a firewall. I'm planning on upgrading to one of these in this or a similar case.

From what I've read, lots of people are using this motherboard for just this purpose.

See www.pdaXrom.org, this article on cross-compiling, Gentoo for Zaurus, the Zaurus Software Index, the Zaurus Message Board, Zaurus.spy.org, and last but definitely least the Zaurus User Group (which among much else has active discussion of where to buy the clamshells from).

reference

"Freescale's scalable PowerPC SoC platforms are supported by its Metrowerks subsidiary"; "Freescale Semiconductor, Inc [...] a subsidiary of Motorola, Inc [...]"

And for another opinion: reference

"Metrowerks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Freescale, which, in turn, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola"

I wrote a paper for school on something like this, and also this a few years back, pretty interesting stuff.

On May 5, 1862, 4,000 Mexican loyalists defeated 8,000 French and revolting Mexican troops in the Battle of Puebla, an event celebrated around the world as Cinco de Mayo. Novell has chosen this day to release the first beta of Mono 1.0, an open source alternative to Microsoft's .Net framework. ...

Amen Brotha. Take a gander at this for confirmation of APAC/EU gets goodies, we live in cell hell.

However, Motorola may do good by us with this teaser... How I wish Catherine Zeta Jones would purr to me with one of those things... :-)

Amen Brotha. Take a gander at this for confirmation of APAC/EU gets goodies, we live in cell hell.

However, Motorola may do good by us with this teaser... How I wish Catherine Zeta Jones would purr to me with one of those things... :-)

The article's reference to Openwave's device products is really about their application suite for mobile devices, Phone Suite V7. V7 provides the missing piece to Linux, the "expensive-to-develop" embedded application software, including web browsing, messaging, file management, media playback, etc.

V7 also has a framework that lets phone makers develop custom applications and UI, including a kick-ass graphics engine (think Java 2D), UI framework, and all the goodies you need on a resource constrained device (much more constrained than a smartphone), which we use to build these applications.

When phone makers look at Linux by itself, it lacks the necessary phone application stack which is both tricky and expensive to develop, and is where V7 provides the solution.

There's a good discussion on OSNews about V7 (can't seem to find it right now), and some press release-ish stuff on LinuxDevices

Note: I'm one of the core developers working on this project, so factor that in accordingly.

This appears to be a kind of unit common in Toronto and now, I assume, Montreal. You put a certain amount of cash (or creditcard -hence the connectivity need) and it issues a ticket showing your time of expiration for the amount of time you bought that you put on your dashboard. Also, since these have remote management and reporting, the municipality can make very good parking control planning. Why put dumb hardware on a stick (parking meter) in front of each vehicle?

BYW, this is an Intel ARM processor

Actualy, Home Depot uses linux, too. Here are a couple of links. One Two

Customers can pay or add time using coins or credit cards from any payment station in the city, provided they remember the parking spot identification code marked on the panel in front of their parking spot.

This mostly comes from the poster calling it a "Parking Meter" when it is more like a "Parking Pay Station".

The Device Profile states, "The stations run a Linux distribution that 8D developed in-house." Where is the source code? I searched:

8D

http://www.8d.com/

But couldn't find anything. How can we efficiently build on 8D's work to build a better, competitive parking meter without the code?

The explosive charges were made in a speech delivered Thursday (April 8) at the Net-Centric Operations Industry Forum in McLean, Va., by Green Hills chief executive officer Dan O'Dowd.

"Now that foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists know that Linux is going to control our most advanced defense systems, they can use fake identities to contribute subversive software," said O'Dowd, in a copy of the remarks released by Green Hills.

"If Linux is compromised, our defenses could be disabled, spied upon or commandeered," O'Dowd continued. "Everyday new code is added to Linux in Russia, China and elsewhere throughout the world. Everyday that code is incorporated into our command, control, communications and weapons systems. This must stop."

O'Dowd laid out a scenario in which the open source development process -- where thousands of programmers contribute code that's subject to public review before being folded into Linux -- could be subverted via "Trojan Horses" illicitly slipped in the software.

At least one embedded expert thought O'Dowd was overstating his case. "I think it's pure FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," said Rick Lehrbaum, a respected board-level-computing guru and former president of Ampro Computer and currently operator of the developer site LinuxDevices.com. "I think the insecurity he's concerned about is an intentional back door and this [Linux] is the most transparent operating system in existence."

Several programmers on the Linux street are also giving O'Dowd some pushback. In a reader's forum on the LinuxDevices.com Web site, a developer who identified himself only as "Concerned citizen" posted a lengthy rebuttal. "[Linux] has features, security, and strengths that are not easily compromised by a foreign agency," he wrote. "Let's not forget that the terrorists that Mr. O'Dowd refers to used proprietary software for attacks on the USA. They have Windows machines and Flight Simulator, you might recall."

O'Dowd claimed the salient issue is that Linux isn't held to as a high a security standard as is the proprietary "Integrity" RTOS made by Green Hills. "If all they would do is hold Linux to the same standard they hold us to, I'd be happy," O'Dowd said told EE Times.com. "At the [Federal Aviation Administration], they have received from us documentation of every single line of source code and tests of every line of code and boundary condition. It costs us $500 to $1,000 a line to review our source code. It would cost billions of dollars to review Linux."

O'Dowd's tough stance may attract attention because he is also taking an unusual public stab at a competitor -- embedded Linux powerhouse MontaVista Software. "MontaVista is outsourcing their development to Russia and China. That's not wrong if you're building toaster ovens," O'Dowd said in an interview. "If you're building national security applications, that's a different story. Nobody's even checking if there's anybody putting anything [dangerous] into Linux."

In response, said MontaVista CEO Jim Ready said Linux constituted a threat to vendors of proprietary software, because of its robustness, cost-effectiveness and its security.

"Mr. O'Dowd makes the common mistake of confusing obscurity with security," said Ready. "Open Source is actually more secure than closed source proprietary software because the oversight of technology content is broader and deeper. Instead of just one company monitoring its own contributions -- or potentially hiding security holes and exploits -- a worldwide community of interested parties actually over

Linux Devices has an article on the 2.6 network features here http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7885999771.html

Didnt all the 5x00 series have the same type of keyboard?

This is true---the keyboard has been one of the defining features of the Zaurus for most---however, the SL-A300, which is one of the newer models, did not feature a keyboard.

Also, the keyboard on the SL-6000 appears to use the style of keys that are closer to the CL-7xx/8xx series. This is probably good, but I haven't personally used them to know.

IMO, i would prefer something more like the CL series, with a larger screen, slimmer profile, and flip-out keyboard. However, I'm very happy with my SL-5500, and builtin wireless sounds very cool.

Since this just makes the $250 Squeezebox a really expensive remote for you 'puter, you might want to consider some other products instead.

If want you want is just a remote for your computer, then the Keyspan Digital Media Remote provides a $40 dollar alternative.

If you want to stream video to you TV from your Mac, then El Gato's eyeHome will pull this off at the same price as the Squeezebox. It will also stream music from iTunes and do slideshows from iPhoto, with no hacking required. ( I know.. what's the fun in that :) )

If you want to wait for Microsoft Announceware, you could get the Windows Media Center Extender for XBOX and use the XBOX to stream video to your TV.

Or at ~$150 you could get the Linksys Wireless Media Adapter . This is the first round of Intel's Digital Media Adapters , of which there is a good review of the technology at linuxdevices.com

From looking at the picture of the Linea LX PDA up close, it is apparent to me that Linux will not be taken seriously in the PDA or desktop markets until a graphical design artist actually takes the time to do some user polling and UAT to determine which graphical icons look and work the best for the end-user. I mean seriously, they have a 'Contacts' icon with an @ symbol, and an 'Email' icon with a paper envelope and stamp symbol. Not only that, the 'Text Editor' and 'Sketch' icons appear to have been switched at birth. For the average Joe, this just isn't intuitive and simply leads to more cursing and hitting the 'back button' than is reasonably acceptable.

Compare it to say, the h2210.

Maybe Linux PDA users aren't fashion conscious, but if i've paid a small fortune for a PDA, it would be nice if it didn't look like something by Fisher Price.

I should have said Linksys, which is now owned by Cisco systems. If you remember, a little while back they were found to be violating the GPL.

Linux-Kernel Archive: Linksys/Cisco GPL Violations
Linksys GPL issues raise embedded concerns

So, some Cisco/Linksys products do use Linux and probably Netfilter. These products are more relevant to the discussion at hand (home, small business users).

WTF why is this troll.

It sure looks like a troll. You toss around technical-sounding terms and make vague assertions. I've followed the kernel preemption patch as it appears in the news, and I don't remember ever seeing the words "preemption points" so I don't know what you are talking about. Linux kernel preemption allows preemption except when an SMP spinlock would have been invoked. What are these "preemption points"? Can you provide a URL to a page that explains them?

anyone familair with the way something like Solaris works knows how primitive the thread support in linux is.

If you don't want people to think you are a troll, don't say things like this without pointing to some kind of reference that backs this up. Since Linux kernel 2.6 just got the NPTL, threads are way better than they used to be. Are you claiming that Solaris is way better than NPTL on kernel 2.6? Or did you not know about NPTL? Or are you just trolling?

the new scheduler is quite controversial, i wouldnt be surprised if they return to the previous one later

References for this statement, please? All the articles I have been reading are very enthusiastic about the new scheduler, especially with the interactivity boost.

steveha

You simply, oh, open up a guide, which took me 30 seconds googling to find, to upgrading. Holy cow, seven whole packages you might need to upgrade to have a working system, and exactly what you need to type to find out.

Your gcc and make almost certainly already are the correct versions (We're talking four years old here.) and everyone's util-linux should already be up to date.

You probably will need a new version of e2fsprogs and procps. You might need a new version of binutils and util-linux, depending on how old your distro is. You'll need a copy of module-init-tools if you don't have it.

But, yes, I can see how you wouldn't be able to type those seven commands and compare version numbers, and heaven forbid if one of them wasn't up to date...you'd actually have to to type the name of the package into urpm or emerge or apt-get or whatever your distro uses to download it!

And, of course, you also need to scroll down and check if you're using any of the stuff in the other table, and run those commands if so.

My God, how complicated! I'm sure it's easier to install an entirely new OS and hope and pray all your drivers work. And spending ten minutes the next time you want to change network settings because MS has redone the interface. And locating and downloading TweakUI again. And spending a hundred dollars for the priviledge of a slightly updated kernel.

Funny, +1.

Here's a replacement link since the original link gives a 403 error. Hint: Study the picture carefully.

If you need a web server in the middle of nowhere, there's always the uCdynamo!

Here is an article that offers further explanation of how the GPL helps the free software community and is even advantageous for corporations in many cases.

...in all Tivos

...in robotics

...various network appliances

...on mainframes

...in cell phones

...on PDAs

...in wristwatches (though a protype)

...and in and in a variety of other gadgets and practical devices

In addition, point out that even creative types like Linux as it has been used to produce most of the major films over the last few years -- from the raw horsepower of render farms through to the artist's desktop.

Just some ideas. (Check each one out before claiming it, though I think all the above is accurate.)

According to This , the A760 does support your precious Bluetooth.

I had a Revo too, and it was great. Much better battery life than my current PocketPC - but this has nothing to do with the OS, it was due to the monochrome, non-backlit screen, no WiFi or sound, and the slow processor! (Still managed to do most of what I needed a PDA for, and I was sad to part with it). And Linux can work fine on some pretty low power devices.

What "Linux on a PDA" needs is backing from a big vendor with plenty of cash to back it up.

Like Motorola perhaps?

I have no idea if Linux is better than Symbian for smart-phones, but it's clearly adequate, and technical issues aren't everything. Cost and politics play an important role. Phone vendors have seen what happened to the PC market and don't want to be owned by any software vendor - Microsoft or Nokia. Linux provides an alternative.

I'd be really surpised in Linux doesn't take at least a 10% of the smart-phone market over the next several years. Symbian will dominate for the forseeable future, MS and Palm will fight it out for second and third place, and Linux will slowly build a following among vendors who want to do something different.

You should have waited for the Lycoris ROM to be released, whenever that will be. It doesn't appear to be on Lycoris.com anywhere, perhaps I'm wrong.

I believe the majority of new smartphones introduced this year will have a 2mp or more camera, 240x320 or better resolution, of course a reasonably capable TCP/IP stack for playing online games, 3D accelration, etc.. 100K of ram is not enough, and it hasn't been enough for years. (100K of RAM is about what you have in a modern low end Nokia phone sold in Europe, and that is clearly not a smartphone.)

So, it all comes down to which OS has the most features for the lowest price, and which fits on a computer that would have been considered high-end in the early '90s. If you start from scratch and plan to sell millions of your product, which you have to do to get a reasonable margin, using Linux is a rather obvious choice imho.

Well, MontaVista at least seems to have a distribution that may (or may not) compete with Symbian and Microsoft offerings. It already has applications that were written using Trolltech's QTopia (which, I believe, was what was used for the Sharp Zaurus). It was used in the Motorola A760 that is being marketed in Asia.

Well, MontaVista at least seems to have a distribution that may (or may not) compete with Symbian and Microsoft offerings. It already has applications that were written using Trolltech's QTopia (which, I believe, was what was used for the Sharp Zaurus). It was used in the Motorola A760 that is being marketed in Asia.

we all know that microsoft has clearly proven that linux costs more! besides, who doesn't want a Start Menu on their phone?

Article over at LinuxDevices.com: "Motorola has launched its first embedded Linux/Java smartphone, the much-anticipated A760, in the Asian market."

The british Beagle team use SuSE/KDE on the desktops a lot. The beagle probe itself use(d) an ADA run-time kernel. Read all about it.

Linux is even used in space!!!

If you were talking about the desktop, then sure. Linux is still geared more for someone that is a little bit more technically savvy then your average MS Windows user. However, I think your age range is off as well. I am 31 and have been using Linux for everything at home for many years now, though I am a programmer and more experienced with a computer then Joe User. I think your statement would make a little bit more sense if you had said it about your average non-technical home user.

As to PDAs being PC replacements, I'd seriously consider the Sharp Zaurus CL-760 (laptop-like) or the SL-6000 (integrated 802.11b).