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HP Ditching WindowsCE for Linux on Jornada?
An anonymous reader sent in linkage to a story talking about HP ditching WinCE for Linux on their Jornada handhelds. As cool as that would
be, I'm gonna seriously doubt that its gonna happen. But if they did,
I'd have to buy a jornada.
One of those machines makes a lot more sense for things like news reading, browsing, etc than my pilot - which is useful for PIM functions and games because it's always with me in a pocket. The combination of a palm and a jornada is something I've missed since I sold my 100LX.
I want to shut this thinking down now - HP had one of the best PIM packages I've ever used developed in house for their 100/200LX units, and porting that or implementing it in linux would not be that difficult. The Jornada is much more "general purpose" than a handheld device, and I suspect this is why WinCE is falling flat on it's face - I want to be able to do my own stuff, and WinCE is too limited (as is PalmOS, in this application, IMHO. I'd rather linux or even DOS (like the 100LX).
Go HP!
..don't panic
Hey HP !
/.
.18) will run al blistering speeds and consume no power at all.
We want the successor to HP 200 LX - the BEST Jornada ever.
The 200LX was an 8Mhz 80186 (286 without the MP support) with 1, 2 or 4 Mb of ram, 3.3V PCMCIA slot, serial & infrared port. 2 weeks standby/6-8 usage on 2 standard AA cells.
We want the 400LX to be an 486sx or smth wth an IBM microdrive (or SANdisk) so we can run ANYTHING WE DAMN PLEASE ON IT ('cept w2k and ME which require pentium) and still to fit in the pocket.
Want Linux - install your fav distro. Want 95 ? ok. Want NT - fine but slow.
Don't tell-me it can-t be done - you have seen that PC105 (or smth) linux-server-on-a-matchbox here on
A 486 cpu built with today's technologies (.25 or even
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But if they did, I'd have to buy a jornada.
I think putting Linux onto a handheld device is just as pointless as putting Windows. What do you honestly need the power for? Do you ever crunch through heavy databases on your Palm? Do you ever program fiercely on your handheld? Do you ever play Quake on it? How does a command prompt help you check your address book?
I think the notion of having an open source handheld operating system is excellent. But that's exactly all it should be- a handheld operating system. Handhelds will never replace desktops. They aren't ment to.
Much as I'd LOVE to see a major player shipping a Linux based PDA, read the freaking article! They said "Linux OR PlamOS", not "Linux". Until I actually see Tux on the bootup, I will pessimistically assume it will be PalmOS. Then they can leverage all the PalmOS apps.
Mind you, if they did ship a Linux version... well, I'd have my Mastercard out so fast Einstein would be spinning in his grave.
www.eFax.com are spammers
But if they did, I'd have to buy a jornada.
Um, why? Its not like I see tons of linux software out there that's made to run on handhelds. I mean, great, it boots up to a prompt or whatever, then what?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
"It would be able to run many existing Linux apps, it would be very easy to develop new apps for, and it would be very easy to integrate into my existing networks as a client or an admin tool" sound like quite a lot of "what they can do" to me.
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There's a dozen decent OS's I can think of that are already appropriate or could be with the same effort as Minix would require. The point is that they're not what folks want (well, outside of OS-stalwarts.)
Linux now has brand-recognition. Management has heard of it, the geeks are enthused, there's applications everywhere for it. It's a known quantity. Heck even Accounting now knows what catagory to list it in.
MS sold folks on the idea of one OS scalable throughout the company - Data Center / File Server / Database Server / Mail Server / Terminal Server / Firewall / Desktop / Laptop / Palmtop / Home / Embedded.
Linux is doing the same thing - one OS (and one skillset, one codebase) scalable up and down. HP knows it can sell this the same way MS pushed WinWhatever and they're going for it.
Furthermore it's trivial to strip down a Linux kernel. Sure it might not be as lean as some others but we're reaching the point where leanness isn't the main criterion. CPU cycles and RAM aren't as limited as they were even 6 months or a year ago, the next generation will be faster / more memory, etc. There's more value in having the aforementioned base of applications and brand-recognition then there is in having some special-purpose OS.
Finally HP isn't necc. selling this for today's market. They're looking a year or two down the line. Linux will clearly still be going strong with lots of development - Minix et al will almost surely not be recieving the same kind of support. At that point running something other then Linux or an entrenched product (Symbios, PalmOS, WinCE) on tomorrow's super-palmtop would have been a short-term gain for a long-term handicap.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
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.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
And I went over there a while back to investigate some industrial handheld solutions they were working on. They showed me a couple of handheld devices running Linux, with 802.11 and Bluetooth, but also running some version of XWindows. Seriously. The one I was most impressed with was running Gnome.
:)
So it's entirely possible.
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
And my favorite feature of the iPAQ is that you can already install linux on it, and start messing around with it ;-)
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Yep. That and Windows ME, as in "Bend me over the table and Windows me again."
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
One option for HP is to switch away from Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system, and onto a different platform such as Linux, or the market-leading Palm OS. "Jornada as a product has an opportunity to become more successful," said Morris.
So, from the story it looks more likely that they'll switch to PalmOS, since Palm holds a huge percentage of the market share. But more likely than that (IMHO), they'll get caught up in the Microcrap machine and stick with CE.
What seems to be lost in all of this is that Minix seems to be the way to go for such a small system. Linux takes work, maybe even a code fork. What I simply fail to get in all this: YES, it's good that Linux is being ported to hell and back, and YES, it's nice to have an option other than PalmOS the great and WinCE the self-explanatory, why does it have to be a full-up Unix? Here's the second biggest problem with WinCE: its interface is still bound to the desktop metaphor. I don't see how exactly you can do much better than this with Linux -- you need a GUI but a "windowing system" per se is overkill. Palm uses a few windows, but for the most part seems to rely on pageswapping to display interfaces. And Linux itself is just too damn big. What's really needed here is an OS that's small to begin with. Minix doesn't need to be built from the ground up; just add some decent power management to the kernel, replace the console with the above-mentioned hypothetical minimalist GUI, and go from there. Face it, folks: the only reason we want to see Linux on a palmtop is name brand recognition. It's about time someone came up with a GPLed OS designed specifically for PDAs. (suggested moderation: -1 Flamebait) /Brian
Why? Why wouldn't you judge your products based on what they can do, not based on something as stupid as this?