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More On The Compaq iPAQ Linux Handheld

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the pass-me-a-tissue dept.

alee writes "Here's what everyone's been waiting to see: screenshots of the Compaq iPAQ (PocketPC) running Linux. No, you're not going to see it running a plain-jane shell -- you're going to actually see it running X! This project is a lot more mature than I expected. Here is Photos of iPAQ being opened, and running X and Screen captures of the iPAQ running X." Ummmm.... wow.

15 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cool interface for graphic arts by Quarters · · Score: 3

    Why dream? The technology has been available for years.

    Wacom LCD Tablets

    I remember seeing a drawing table/screen the size of a drafting table at SIGGRAPH a few years ago. It was in the Alias/Wavefront booth and they were running Alias Sketch on it. Quite cool.

  2. Re:Xscribble? by LinuxBean · · Score: 4

    Xscribble is a part CMU part SUN graffiti like inputting stuff. It seems to recognize graffiti like inputs. Get it at handhelds.org in the download apps src directory. It needs a few tweaks for i386 and it is picky about where its config files are located.

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  3. Re:Xscribble? by Russ+Nelson · · Score: 3

    The only tweaks for i386 it needs are to run xmkmf on the IMakefiles. And you do need to edit a header file to change the config file location. Other than that, it works fine on my x86 box.
    -russ

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  4. I-paq, linux, and x-copilot by zaphod4224 · · Score: 4

    What I want to know is how long before x-copilot is ported to this thing? Just think, once it's ported, you probably won't have to give up your favorite palm apps. Even under emulation, it will probably run faster than a real palm, and with better color???

    1. Re:I-paq, linux, and x-copilot by bgdarnel · · Score: 3

      You can barely emulate a Palm at full speed on a 300MHz desktop machine; there's no way it would be faster on a 133MHz StrongARM. Granted, the current emulators, being mainly for debugging purposes, have a ton of extra error checks, but I don't think it'd be enough to make up the difference.

  5. Re:iPaq? by Happy+Monkey · · Score: 3
    Great, they named it after a dead rapper.

    Wouldn't that be iiPaq?
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  6. Re:Cool! by Christopher+B.+Brown · · Score: 3
    The hardware appears to have inherited a lot of characteristics directly from the Itsy, so it comes as no surprise that Jim Gettys and crew could proceed fairly quickly to having Linux and X working on the iPAQ.

    Note that the TRG card was not solely providing 8MB of RAM, but also supplied some flashable ROM capabilities; I'm not sure which part was critical to letting Linux boot.

    If you look at the uClinux web site, it really seems quite directed to use in embedded applications, and part of the documentation there suggests that many apps won't even need multitasking, which isn't terribly compatible with this being a "generally" useful platform.

    I don't think you'll be running a uClinux PDA any time soon, suffice it to say...

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  7. iPaq? by kwsNI · · Score: 3

    Great, they named it after a dead rapper.

    kwsNI

  8. New WM? by Mike+Schiraldi · · Score: 4

    It's cool and all that they fit X onto such a small handheld, but i don't think common X window managers will work well.. i mean, look at the real estate that the title bars take up. As Palm showed us, handhelds work better with a different kind of UI.
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    1. Re:New WM? by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 3

      I'd say this is not the case. Many window managers actually look a whole lot like the CE interface. Look at wm, twm, olvwm, etc. Use a font size meant for the system, and it functions nearly exactly like CE. CE also has title bars, don't forget. Under CE, though, normally nearly all apps are considered full screen. Palm is the same way. All apps are full screen. Window bars are A) Not always required, and B) Can be made NOT to use the same realestate as on a desktop system.

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  9. Where to get the binaries/kernel from by philj · · Score: 3

    You can get binaries and the kernel Here (that's if you're mad enough to try :-)

  10. How about this one?... by Coq · · Score: 5

    Ok, so now we make X just a little smaller and throw it on the watch that IBM put out. Then we run an X server on the watch and run X-clock.

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  11. Xscribble? by freebe · · Score: 3

    What's this xscribble program I see? Where do I download it? How does it work? Does it recognise graffiti? Why isn't there a website for it (at least in google?)

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    Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition

  12. Cool interface for graphic arts by Consul · · Score: 4
    The idea of drawing directly on an LCD screen would make an excellent graphic arts interface. You could have your 8.5x11 inch touch tablet screen, complete with Crusoe processor running Linux and CorelDRAW 9 or Canvas 7 (this is where a port of Illustrator to Linux would be nice). All you need to do is draw straight on the syrface to put all of your illustrations together.

    Yes, I know this is somewhat offtopic, but I can't help but dream about this.

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  13. Cool! by suwalski · · Score: 3

    This looks very much like the screenshots of the Itsy using the pen entry system. Perhaps we can still have Linux on handhelds.

    Does anyone know what is going on with Linux on Palm hardware? Last I checked you needed a special 8-meg TRG card. But now that Palms ship with 8-megs of RAM... I'd like to hear from anyone who knows anything!