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Linux On iPAQ 3600 Handheld
wruji writes: "Linux on Compaq's upcoming iPAQ PocketPC.
handhelds.org has more info
including
install instructions" Cute little box.
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Find it Fast
Be Prepared for Anything
Fit in, Standout
See it all Clearly
Touch it, Feel it, Believe it
Take it Easy
Does any of that actually make sense? I especially like "Touch it, Feel it, Believe it". Reminds me of the fake commercials in the robocop movies.
This Sig Intentionally left blank
Linux is powerful as hell, but the interface is still done mostly through command line.
:-/ ).
Can't make up my mind whether you are a troll or not. If you are, you are smart because you have learned not to trash Linux where it is strong, but that strength does not *directly* affect a naive mom&pop user. If you are not a troll, then you are living on another planet, because on the planet I live on, virtually everything we do on Linux here is done through the GUI. Almost a year after she began using Linux I finally showed my wife how to use the command line (she *likes* it! - just like giving a command to her husband, I guess
I am a programmer and, other than when I am actually editing program text, I too do most of my work on Linux through the GUI.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Have you seriously tried using WinCE? The desktop startmenu/etc. paradigm doesn't translate into a good handheld interface. Half of Palm's success has been in avoiding this problem and coming up with a different interface.
One of the "laymen" I know who tried WinCE (who'd be royally pissed off if she knew someone called her a *man;) has moved on to an ibook. The interface was one of her many gripes with WinCE.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
How do they pull that one off? Maybe by day, the iPAQ makes you a mild-mannered reporter, but by night... it makes you a grouchy, irritable reporter... (with superhuman crankiness).
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Well, that's not what the rest of your post says. The rest of your post says that Linux will be a good PDA OS when people will write proper software for it. That's an argument I can make for any OS...
Either you didn't read my post, you don't know what Linux is, or you're a troll.
Assuming it's one of the first two, I'll clarify it for you:
Linux is an excellent OS for use on PDAs. Linux is an OS, not a GUI.
Your objections are to the major GUIs currently widely used on Linux, and other INTERFACE tools that are not in any way, shape, or form part of the operating system.
The major interfaces currently widely used are not very good PDA interfaces. However, neither is WinCE. So I don't see how using a bad interface under a good OS is a bad idea, when the alternative is using a bad interface over a bad OS.
--
Even with an MP 2100's 2.5 megs there isn't enough storage space. Apples genius in using a non standard format for its memory cards makes finding compatible cards large enough for even a tiny disto impossible.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The new Compaq iPaq is the only WinCE handheld with it's OS on a Flashable ROM.
With the hardware built to take advantage of a full installation of Windows Pocket PC, many real applications would come up for these things with a much smaller Linux installed.
I'm using a Jornada 548. The thing as as much RAM and a more powerful processor than the desktop computer I was using 5 years ago. Forget for a moment about the battery life (I know, we're entering the "willing suspension of disbelief" zone). You should be able to run just about anything with a specific installation of Linux on this.
As for the people who ask "Why would you want to?" I can only say because you can. Most technological improvements were developed that way, and then other people quickly found applications for them. Heck, most people didn't see a use for portable phones not too long ago...
And, if nothing else, it gives people one more option. And that is always a good thing.
Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable unix network is no challenge
nojw
Now that Compaq, IBM, and SGI seem to be making a big effort to get Linux on whole new types of machines (Compaq: handhelds, IBM: mainframes, SGI: supercomputers) the only real issue is going to be taking advantage of these corporations' help as much as possible.
Sigh... Seems like Linux, Solaris, and NT are going to be all that's left for non-desktop boxen RSN. It'll be interesting to see what happens if Linux is able to do something similar on the desktop and get corporate designers working on a better UI.
deathb
Would you do it for some scoobie crack?
...is that you can run Linux on them. I wonder if you can get a discount by leaving out Windows?
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
To exec a menu app is no great sin. Folks that used to log into a lot of BBS's "back in the day" would feel right at home.
Handheld GUI's all look like crap so far anyway, so why not let all the "point and poke" features be done with ASCII text instead of low-res pictures? It might not look as cool, but would probably run faster.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
why do the pictures show it running WinCE or Windows Powered or whatever the heck they call it now?
Well, you made a lot of declarations but I've seen very few reasons.
:-)
Well, I was responding to your unsupported declarations, so I didn't think we were getting down to that level.
Why is Linux an excellent OS for a PDA?
Because it's Open Source and very well understood, making it easy to modify.
Because it's written with portability a strongly-considered factor throughout, making it easy to port.
Because it's already got some support for every important PDA chip, to one degree or another.
Because it is very small and efficient, due to it's modular nature.
Because it's GPLed, meaning you don't have to pay a nickel to use it.
Because there is an active developer community out there that wants it to work well on your product, and will thus help you.
Because there is a large contingent of users out there who will buy your product if it runs Linux, who wouldn't if it used another OS. The reverse is also true, but the Palm has a lock on those folks.
Specifically, why is it better than, say, QNX or Plan 9, or some *BSD, or EPOC?
Who said it was better than any of those, much less all of them? I don't recall speaking to those OSes at all.
I said it was better than WinCE, and I stand by that statement. I did *NOT* say it was the perfect end-all be-all of PDA OSes.
Besides that I'd like to remind you that PDAs have no keyboard. That makes command-line interface not good at all.
I don't know of a single PDA (not counting things like the REX) that doesn't have a keyboard available, and several (such as Psion) have keyboards built in. You need to watch the blanket statements.
The IBM Workpad z50 is but one example of a WinCE PDA with a built-in full-size keyboard.
I understand the difference between OS and GUI, but a pure kernel is not very useful by itself, is it?
It is if you're trying to write a PDA interface. Gotta have an OS under that, and it helps if it's small, robust, and powerful.
Before you can write the interface, you've got to have the OS working. That's what these folks are trying to do, and that's what you're complaining about.
Besides, I personally have uses for it. If I have uses for it, does that not by definition make it useful?
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As long as Pocket PC or WinCE or whatever does the job it was intended, do the mechanics and whatnot really matter?
Well, since WinCE has failed twice now, and the biggest response we're seeing to the introduction of "Pocket PC" devices is these stories about running Linux on them, I think we have your answer.
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What the man is trying to say is, you can install Linux on one of these things.
NOT that Compaq can do it for you. Do-it-yourself.
Shouldn't be too hard, as it runs on a StrongArm...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Before I get bashed or moderated down here, I need to say I love Linux. I exclusively run Linux on both my laptops even though I sacrifice sound to do so *damn A3D*
I must ask WHY you would want to install Linux on a hand-held device?? I mean, yeah, it's COOL. It's fun, you can impress your friends, but it doesn't seem very efficient. Linux is powerful as hell, but the interface is still done mostly through command line. This is a good thing. I think (and a lot of people might agree) that the command line is the most efficient way to work. On a handheld device like this, however, command line interface becomes a chore.
Linux is also powerful becuase it's a true multi-user environment. Runlevel 3 ceases to be important in a small device like this (I would think). And what are you going to install on it? Somehow I'm guessing tons of stuff would refuse to compile.
I mean, yeah, it's cool and all, but unless someone writes a distro of Linux designed to be fully graphical etc and perform like WinCE (without the instability and Microsoft patronage) I just don't really understand the usefullness of installing Linux on this thing.
Except, of course, for the coolness value =)
DranoK
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
I am considering buying one... seems to do everything that the Psion can do, with color and with Exchange integration.
The HP Journada that I played with seemed a bit big.. but, it seems that they are comming a long ways and is quite expandible. (a la HandSpring)..
Who knows, maybe MS did it right with the PocketPC.. maybe not.. but I must say that from a visual standpoint, it has Palm and Psion beat hands down.
I would be interested in feedback on how the human interface factors rate. (Does their handwriting recognition work as well as PalmOS's ?)
Sure. Why not?!
... there are feature 'wish lists' that we all have for certain devices ... if MS-based devices have these first, it will be a stumbling block, but not insurmountable.
...
Datapoint 1:How many people do you know who currently own PocketPCs? How many own Palms / Visors?
People who own Palms or Visors I think you can think of as a realistic minimum market for beefier computers in nearly the same shape. A lot of those people don't *want* a "real PC" in their hand unless it will run for 6 weeks on 2 AA batteries (not going to happen soon;) but there's enough in common between "need an electronic appointment book" folks and those who are also carrying (you pick) [a laptop, a cell phone, a pager, a GPS, an MP3 or minidisk player] that a bet a good chunk of them would like to consolidate several of those into one thing.
Datapoint 2: Eyeglass / headbased displays are clearly not *mainstream* yet, but they're getting there. (I think Crutchfield now sells the TV ones that thinkgeek carries) When they're no longer a sight to rubberneck at, remember that Linux has been running wearable computers for a long time.
Datapoint 3: Linux is mainstream. Period. The day I can go into Best Buy or Barnes and Noble and buy 8 competing Black Mass Instructional Kits, or hear housewives discussing how cute that little baby Rosemary had is, then Satanism will also have become mainstream. The number of individuals who might install Linux on their iPaq after reading all the dire warnings isn't that big, maybe, but word spreads. Linux is already known as the OS to power scads of WebPads etc, and between hand size and thick-magazine size, the leap is not that great. Or, to put it another way, Linux is trendy the same way chanting the words "dot.com" is. You may find widespread interest annoying and as matching the underground, revolutionary feel that Linux had a few years ago, but it's more than a passing fancy. Considering what it means (GPL; computerational polyculture; renewed interest in UI), I think it's actually *more* of a revolutionary OS now than then!
Datapoint 4: As far as I know, there is no high-quality paint / drawing app for Windows CE or Windows Powered or Windows For Tiny Things (someone correct this, perhaps?). Programs like the GIMP and Sketch, on the other hand, ought to work on a small system running Linux and XFree 4.0. I'd like that on a plane ride, or for simple sketching, etc.
Datapoint 5: Public misapprehension of Microsoft as a monopoly operator. It's there, and it's not going away. I won't get into that part right now, but however much we like the reasons for it, right now non-MS operating systems have a much better chance to break out than they did a few years ago.
On the con side, well
For instance, I would really like and appreciate:
- being able to watch quicktime and other movies on my Linux-based palmtop, whether it's a YOPY, an iPaq, or whatever comes out next week. Portable entertainment.
- a built in GPS reciever
- bluetooth or similar for short-range communications
- a digital camera on a stalk
- lots of ports, on a deck-of-cards sized docking thingy. That way, it's small enough to take along, but the ports themselves aren't subject to abuse when they're not needed.
But these as as doable with a Linux-based tiny pc as with MS flavor of month
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
iThink that these people should stop with all of these i's. iHope that they do before iWhack one of them upside the head.
Eh...
Huh!? I thought i was dead? Letter i Found Dead ;-)
Those are likely to be cheaper and less hassle to install and use. And if you buy the iPAQ now, you'll just contribute to Microsoft's Windows CE sales figures and pay extra for software you won't use. I'd recommend waiting for true Linux PDAs.
Meanwhile, you can always send mail to Compaq expressing your interest in a version of the iPAQ without an OS or with Linux preinstalled.
I have not used the iPAQ -The idea of color and MP3 playback appeals to the gadget freak in me.. but when it comes down to straight-ahead useability I love my old Palm Pilot 5000. I traded a fourteen inch monitor and a SCSI case for it a few years ago. The UI is simple as pie (good for handheld)and customisable.
There is no way that a Pilot 5000 will stand up to a Pocket PC in terms of sheer computational muscle, but it doesnt need to. A couple of AAA batteries last me months of daily use- I've put in a two meg upgrade card, which is more that enough for the 14 or so websites I browse daily with avantgo.
I can read/answer email, keep phone numbers,appointments, play games - etc. I dont even miss the backlight on this old device. When it comes to fancy colour graphics, and video playback -Im happy to use my Desktop box or Laptop. I'm not ready to trade in 2 months of battery life for 6-8 hours. This is especially true if the device offers MP3 playback, because I would want to be able to use it as a walkman throughout the day at work, and would like to be able to travel with it without having to plug-in daily to recharge.
air and light and time and space
Post of the month, man, post of the month. Thanks!
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com