Bootable CompactFlash Cards For Handhelds?

An Anonymous Coward asks: "Why haven't Compaq, HP and others provide an option in BIOS to boot from from a Compact Flash card in order to speed Linux acceptance and development for handhelds like the IPAQ 3600 series? Are there technical reasons? I some of you have to be drooling over the possibility of Linux on these babies - and yes I know about the great work at handhelds.org - but a worrisome thing is that currently, once you burn flash in the unit, there is no going back. If these companies would provide that option, the development of alternative OS's to winCE would speed up! Want to try a new kernel? Replace the CompactFlash card."

Comments

Two points

[Ledge Kindred]

One: there are a number of people working on making the H3600 able to boot Linux from WinCE off of a CF device. As the handhelds.org site says, "A lot of people are very interested in this option." and "We expect that once this feature becomes available, the number of people running Linux on their iPAQs will increase at least an order of magnitude, possibly two." Personally I agree. If Ihad any skill whatsoever in this area of programming, I'd be working on making it happen myself.

It's certainly DO-able, as evidenced by the fact that the handheld.org guys can dump out of WinCE, from WinCE, to load the boot monitor you use to load Linux into flash. It's just a matter of someone having the time to come up with all the proper bits and bytes to make it happen.

Two: I've personally slapped linux onto my iPAQ (yes I have one, drool over it!) and successfully restored WinCE without a hitch. It's a little scary the first time, but so's swimming in the deep end. It's nothing that someone who's successfully compiled their own kernel isn't capable of doing. (Notice how I don't say it's EASY, but its certainly straightforward and not at all scary if you pay attention. I'll admit that it is definitely slow going, trying to pump 16MB across a 115k serial link, though.)

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