The Inside Scoop on Yopy

jsse writes "Linux.com has an interview with a Yopy programmer Young Hoon Kim. He told us what we can do with this promising Linux PDA - like running Apache on it." A little light on substance, but several interesting points. As it stands, the iPaq is really the only Linux handheld candidate at this level (with high end features like a color LCD). This one is due out later this year.

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Linux on handhelds is nice

[m08593]

People frequently say: "Why would I want Linux on a handheld?" "Why bother with X11?" "Why bother with bash?" I think it's pretty clear that if you designed a handheld OS from scratch, it wouldn't quite look like Linux with X11 and a bunch of command line apps sitting around.

However, even something like the AgendaVR (66MHz MIPS) is powerful enough to run Linux 2.4 with XFree86 4.0 quite comfortably. And the benefits of having standard Linux running on it are significant. You may not want to actually use normal desktop linux applications or command line programs while tapping away on your machine. However, having a standard environment makes a lot of libraries and tools port very easily. And because you can log into your little handheld and even run X11 apps in both directions, debugging gets really eas.

For the AgendaVR, it took me maybe an hour to set up the cross-compilation environment, get PPP up and running, and read the documentation. After that, porting applications and tools to the AgendaVR was a snap: it took maybe 10 minutes to get a web browser and a scripting engine cross-compiled for the AgendaVR.

In that regard, I'm wondering whether the Yopy is doing the right thing by going with a different window system. If the AgendaVR can run XFree86 4.0 without problems, it should fly on the Yopy with its faster processor and bigger memory. I think the Yopy would be better off going with XFree86 4.0 as well. (And calling its window system the "W Window System" is nothing short of confusing, since X11's predecessor was called "W".)