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Why yes, I do.

(OK, now that I've established my credentials... :-P )

You folks should react to new products differently. New Linux products are an opportunity, not a threat.

Let's do iPaq vs Zaurus first.

The Zaurus hardware architecture is substantially similar to the iPaq. Even if the kernel sources are maintained separately, you should be able to run the same distributions on the the Sharp as on the Compaq (once we do any needed X server changes). So if you're really dedicated to the handhelds.org community, this gives you the opportunity to choose between two hardware vendors and devices to run Familiar on. Competition is good, right?

Now, what about handhelds.org/familiar vs Zaurus Linux? Well, there's still a lot of lingering questions about the efficacy of the X11 architecture for handhelds. Sharp's commitment to QTE means they've spent a lot of resources on building a nice environment on top of it. So for you, the opportunity is to let Sharp spend a lot of money finding out how well the QTE architecture really works. And if they're right, because this is Open Source you have the opportunity to take the basis of their code and use it yourself. No risk.

What about the Java angle? Jeode isn't Open Source. But PocketLinux is. (And appears to have some very active development lately.) If Jeode is doing some things right, PocketLinux gets to pick up the best of their ideas for free. The opportunity is to explore the viability of Java and alternatives for Java application architectures for handhelds, and again, at no cost to you.

Stop thinking of yourself as a member of the handhelds.org community, or the PocketLinux community, or the Agenda VR3 community.

Start thinking of yourself as a member of the Open Source community---with particular interests: handhelds, information management tools, multimedia, task mobility....

We don't know what the right answers are to all of the hard questions that face us; we don't even know all the questions. But we can share our results, change direction, and work on parts of the problems as we ourselves see fit. When companies produce Linux products, they're another research staff and contributor to this, not a dictator. That's the value proposition of Open Source in emerging technologies.

Trolltech has some very interesting things like QT/Palmtop a fully fledged palmtop user interface with tools!
BTW nice restyle trolltech!

furthermore: on www.handhelds.org there are some really promising distros for ARM based PDAs

and finially a real beauty: Pocketlinux!! a verty nice distro!!!!

I really can't wait to try these distros on palm hardware!!!

Linux on the PDA doesn't really rely on the command prompt. Check out PocketLinux. It's really quite cool.

2) - Thus, it falls more to companies that are able to pay engineers to work on PIM applications. However, these days engineers are expensive, and the companies are unwilling to pay an engineer 40 bucks an hour, and then turn around and give the suites away. Thats has nothing to do with open source or code sharing, thats just business.

It may be the case that nobody is working on or giving away PIM suites for your chosen platform, but that doesn't mean nobody is doing it. Agenda Computing's Agenda PIM suite is available (later versions in CVS) and it's been ported to the iPaq as part of the Familiar distro. Heck, you folks support fltk on Nano-X, right? So do the port yourself!

PocketLinux is giving away their PIM functionality too.

Besides, show me a Compaq iPac with Linux installed that can play MP3's. I rest my case.

Would you like salt with those words? MMMMmmm, tasty.

Check out pocketlinux to get a good idea of what's being done....and don't waste our time unless you know what you are talking about.


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Besides, show me a Compaq iPac with Linux installed that can play MP3's. I rest my case.

Would you like salt with those words? MMMMmmm, tasty.

Check out pocketlinux to get a good idea of what's being done....and don't waste our time unless you know what you are talking about.


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Besides, show me a Compaq iPac with Linux installed that can play MP3's. I rest my case.

Win2k on a handheld?!?! What is it powered with, a car battery?

Here is a screenshot of an iPaq running pocketlinux, playing an MP3. Here is another -- this one of QPE, including screenshots that show its support for alternate input methods.

- - - - -

And my favorite feature of the iPAQ is that you can already install linux on it, and start messing around with it ;-)

Don't forget that PocketLinux 1.0 has recently been released, and MobileLinux, from Transmeta (Linus and crew) is supposedly going to be publically released within the next week! I see 3 major PDA linux distros rising to power:
1. PocketLinux
2. MobileLinux
3. Yopy's Linux
Will a Linux OS for PDAs splinter or will the various distros eventually merge? Time will tell.

Since the pocketlinx.com seems to be slashdotted you can try hitting the ftp server at:


ftp://ftp.pocketlinux.com/version-1.0/


Html Docs

Since the pocketlinx.com seems to be slashdotted you can try hitting the ftp server at:


ftp://ftp.pocketlinux.com/version-1.0/


Html Docs

Have fun

Have fun

Have fun

I'm still waiting for the handhelD PDA/Phone with a nice built in game system, and enough memory for a few days of MP3s tho ugh . Oh, and 802.11 networking, and the ability to remotely display X11 apps. And it should cook rice perfectly every time

You can get this with a iPAQ or Casio E1XX and the right array of CF cards. None of this 'springboard' proprietary interface stuff. Ive got a CF 56K modem, 10/100NIC & (2pcs) 96MB CF mem for my E100. Of course the E100 runs WinCE - but with alittle more maturity Pocket Linux will be a nice alternative.

What the HandHeld industry needs is a separation between OS and hardware - Ive said this before on /. - I hope the Handheld industry 'goes the way of the IBM PC' vs the 'Apple way' that it is now... I would much rather have an opportunity to choose the OS independently of the Hardware for my Handheld. If you have a look at your 'Palm' hardware vs your average 'WinCE' hardware I think you'll understand my frustration - I would like a more elegant OS with a more open 'attitude' but Im not willing to hobble myself with under-powered/under-capable hardware.

Does anyone know if someone is developing a CF Phone with WinCE

How do they license Linux for use in the embedded devices. Aside from the obvious alternatives (pocketlinux,ucLinux) why would a manufacturer rely on Red Hat to provide something that is already in existence, in which Red Hat really has no claims to 'license' a kernel that they don't own. As far as the distribution goes, if they are licensing it to commercial vendors for embedded systems is there any packages for the at-home hackers on this system?

I think that Red Hat does have a sound product, the company does seem somewhat strange. I still do not understand their primary source of long term revenue, perhaps I never will.

The stock had been way overvalued, he said, thanks to overly enthusiastic investors who "believed Red Hat was going to overtake Microsoft. They don't believe that now." Thankfully he at least said that. Best part of the article summed up right there.

Im sorry - but my money is clearly on the success of PocketLinux. What seems to be the best 'idea' is that we pair down Linux, build a GUI (why Xwindows? maybe XWindows is not 'appropriate' for Handhelds).

PocketLinux currently runs on Casio's E100, Compaq's iPaq & the VTech Helio. I think the 'real future' of pocket PC's, and if success for Linux will play out in this space is if a 'distro' is developed that is not to closely tied to one device - why not use Linux as the operating system to move the Handheld PC market away from the 'Apple' desktop idea to the 'IBM Clone' idea - where people install whatever (PocketLinux) OS on their current INSERT YOUR PDA HERE?

Have a look at all the PDA's that were @ Comdex 2000 - here at PDABuzz Look at all those beauty little PDAs, the question is are these obscure electronics companies from Asia going to build and 'market' a completely new OS for each of these devices? -OR- Would they be better off selling the device like a standard PC, with the attitude that users can find a OS to run on it. Wouldnt you rather buy a handheld for its hardware (the reason I bought the E100 10 months ago) or would you rather be forced to buy a OS/Hardware combo - where buying one may force you to compromise on the other.

Casio's E100 is a far better piece of hardware than anything fielded by Palm (even today - only advantage palm may have is size.. but its not that great an issue)

Palm's are small but their capabilities, speed, screens, audio(?) are less than optimal.

What I want is the PalmComputer market to move in the direction of the PC market - that way we can have our cake (hardware) and eat it too (PocketLinux).

What I would like to see: Both Palm and PocketPC get caught with their pants down (ala Apple in the 80s) while each of these "I have a wonder Palm PC but no 'marketing' or 'OS' to sell with it" (ala IBM Clone shops in the 80s) brings their product to market and aids Transvirtual in building PocketLinux. This basic change is bound to occur in the handheld space - Ill bet PocketLinux makes it happen...

As a user, I might not care. I want good software. I like Free Software for well discussed reasons (see gnu.org), but I wont get into that now.

Now, consider being a developer. I want to write applications which need more power than a Palm offers me. Alternatives I can buy: devices with Epoc or Windows CE. Let's concentrate on Windows.

Development tools for Windows CE are, hm, not cheap, it's costly to get information about the system, the API is different to everything I know from before. This even counts for Windows for Desktop developers, to a certain degree.

I can use PersonalJava. This might work, but there might be application-specific reasons for not using Java.

Alternative: I can put Linux on my iPAQ. Whow, what opportunities does that offer: I can use plain X. I can use PocketLinux with Microwindows and Java. I can use embedded Qt.

Every of these possibilities has counterparts on Desktops. I have access to documentation. I can use tools I know from before. So it's easier to write applications.

Wait a minute. Applications. Wasn't that the user cares about?

I just bought me an iPAQ, and I'm looking forward to putting Linux on it. This Windows CE stuff is so closed, I can't even sync the build-in calendars with my Linux-system (why use a standard format, when you can use outlook). The Palm is much more open here.

To put it very easy: Linux on iPAQ = Openness of PalmOS + Power of a "Windows powered" device.

So, what should Linux people be doing? Sitting back and waiting for Palm to be the source of All Good Things?

Hey, I didn't say I wanted perl on PalmOS. I make no claims for other slashdot readers, however. :-)

I really don't know what Palm developers should be doing. There are still many undiscovered killer apps nicely implementable on PalmOS. Go forth and hack!

One of the big mysteries on the horizon is the Big ARM Switch coming up---how many more apps will the new architecture will allow, or in what areas we should be working? What new kinds of capability will come with the new OS?

And I think that leads to something I was trying to say with the phrase "Linux people".

The Linux community doesn't have to wait around to see what some company is going to ship, nor is it stuck with one particular goal or vision imposed from outside.

Sure, some perl weenies are going to drool over PocketPerl. But I'm not gonna stop them from implementing it. Rebuild a minimalist OS on eCos? Sure, why not. Java PDA? On its way. X on a machine running on AAAs? And how about Smalltalk, for that Dynabook spirit?

Some of these are probably bad ideas. I think a perl-centric PDA environment is a really bad idea. :-) But I don't make that decision, and neither does any other single person or organization. What will eventually decide it is whether a) someone thinks it should be done and does it, and b) enough people like it to keep it alive---even if it doesn't dominate the market.

Heck, eCos and Squeak don't need Linux, and that's a sign that Linux itself may be a bad idea in some cases. So me saying "Linux people" was a mistatement. I hope you get what I meant.

If the Linux developers are having a tough time figuring out what to do , a much more useful pursuit would be developing a better way of syncing a Palm device to Linux.

Personally, I'd be a lot more interested in working on this if the Palm devices spoke some standard, open protocol for synchronization. Other people are more motivated than me, though.

While many people have mentioned Handhelds.org, I just thought I'd point out that Transmeta is working on PocketLinux, a Linux distribution for handhelds, and is initially targeting the V-Tech Helio and the iPaq. Information at wwww.pocketlinux.com.

However, books cover a broader topics, in the sense that some are purely technical, and some are purely artistic. For those technical books, if the contributing authors can agree on the "development format" and "publishing format", open source software paradigm may apply.

For artistic publication, it may not work that well. If I'm a poet and am trying to publish a collection of my poems, I certainly do not want anyone to mess around. I won't even accept any errata report. Who are the reader to tell me that it was an error? I intentionally wrote that way, so get out.

On a side note, personally, I would take the electronic copy any time there is one. Someone declared, on the pocketlinux mailing list, that he wants to develop a micro-reader (ebook reader) with book contents in XML format. If the project is done right, we may have an open-source ebook reader soon.

• Faster
• less memory hog
• features more directly pertinant to PDA use

Many apps, perhaps, may be portable from X to [GUI of choice] with relatively little effort, many X apps may still require some kludging to work on PDAs, but it would seem to me that the chance of having a significant number of useful apps on a PDA platform changes dramatically when you consider [GUI of choice] vs X.

X is thestandard. I use it on Suns, I use it on PCs and Macs. I would strongly welcome its presence on a PDA. For this reason, while I wish-well the YOPY, Transvirtual's effort, and others, I feel much more comfortable supporting the Compaq dev team.

Does anyone feel the advantages of heterogenous GUIs outweigh the broad cross-platform support of X?

Out of the box it outperforms my Palm Pilot. It runs on a 75mhz MIPs CPU with 8MB of ram and 2MB of FLASHABLE (ie. can upgrade the OS, etc) RAM. The unit uses an interesting method that allow you to completely swap in different operating systems.

I _totally_ see a big future for this little device. Below are some links

Transvirtual's Pocket Linux Site
Helio HomePage
Sourceforge Linux on the Helio page

And.. If this isn't enough for you. There is another company that has put Linux on handhelds. They were at LinuxWorld also (I never saw them), and were demoing their Agenda VR3 Linux Handheld. Their web site is at: Agenda Linux Handheld

The Agenda VR3 will not be available til around October according to their WWW site. The vtech Helio is available now. I hope they both do well, but I'd have to say the helio has an edge over the VR3 with it's sound recording features, plus the head start jump on the VR3.

Oh.. Of course TransVirtual's Linux software and Kafee software for the Helio are GPL!!!

I am putting Linux on my Helio tonight. Please post pertinent links and info. Will report back on how it went tomorrow.

I pretty much agree with everything you've said. Linux, for the desktop, isn't ready for your plam. Which is why the Agenda is no good. However, Linux can work, if it's implemented correctly. Which is why (sigh) the PocketLinux guys kick ass. They did it and they did it RIGHT. Watch out palm. . .

First off, I have a gripe. The iPaq is NOT running X. It outputs directly to a frame buffer. Why would you want to run X? Now, forget the damn agenda. Why bother? The hardware is WAY too underwhelming, it doesn't exactly work yet, and why the hell do you want a full distro on your handheld. pocektlinux. I wish I was as smart as these guys.

• The devices are notacably smaller than the Palm III series, and even a little smaller than the Palm Vs. They are as thick as the Palm III, however.
• The devices use an unusual RISC processor for the CPU
• The devices use the FLTK toolkit, and any FLTK application for the Linux desktop should port reasonably easily to the Agenda.
• The application they were showing at the LWCE was a Bash shell, probably to prove these are really Linux machines.
• Input is via a on-screen QWERTY keyboard which is part of the display at the bottom. I hope it is possible to replace this keyboard by a Fitaly keyboard, or by one of the various handwriting reconition techniques.
• The devices will have 2 megs of flash and 8 mega of ram. The person showing off the unit was talking about it being possible to use the flash to store application and possibly data.
• The devices are expected to retail for $150
• They promise to release them around October

- Sam

I was talking to the agenda guys yesterday. Nice folks and I wish them well. However, I have one problem with their product. I don't want a desktop linux on my handheld. This actually seemed to be one of the selling points for these guys. "Watch, you can run an ls command. This thing even has inetd!" Yeah, so? Do I want to mess around with configuring lengthy text files on my handheld? Sorry. It's fine to have these things as part of the system, but the interface is going to have to change. Accessing the command prompt from a 2"x3" screen is not going to work, even with the chiclet keyboard they seemed to be selling as well. Do yourselves a favor, go check out PocketLinux. With as much praise as I'm heaping on these guys, you'd think they were paying me. Have no fear, I'm just an OpenSource Documentation guy. I just think the pocket linux guys kick ass.

I just want to publicly state what a complete idiot jesse berst is. I've never, EVER found a bit of worthwhile information in anything he's ever written. His opinions are nothing more than that, his opinions, and they are often wrong and backed by nothing more than his own ill-conceived speculation. We are all now dumber after reading any of the trash he writes.
Now, to mobile linux. Most of the embedded stuff here at (a href="http://www.linuxworldexpo.com">LinuxWorld is alright. There is one stellar exception that stands above the crowd--PocketLinux. These guys rock! First of all, unlike some of the other guys, they're not putting a desktop linux distro in my hand. Do I want to run X on a screen that's 2" x 3"? Hell no. They've built an incredibly fast system that will display full motion video (that's right) on the Compaq iPaq. It's completely open source, and the framework is standards based and it appears to be easy to write your own applications on. It scales as well. Everything from a handheld to a cellular phone to a set-top box is possible. This is where the future of mobile linux is going to be. These guys finally did it right. Anyone else considering an embedded solution would do themselves a favor to look over there. And one final note, this product is SHIPPING TODAY! Yesterday even. This is not vapor ware. Spend the $150 and start developing apps today!

did anyone get a chance to check out the PocketLinux handhelds? they sound ultrakewl from the website. supposed to have the 2.4 linux kernel with java/xml support. it's supposed to run on both the ipaq and a vtech pda. anyone get their hands on one?

one of my friends told me about the PocketLinux handhelds he saw at linuxworld. has anyone had a chance to see one at the conference? how does it compare to the vr agenda?