First Review of Sharp's new Linux-based PDA

A reader writes "In this article, just posted at LinuxDevices.com, embedded developer Jerry Epplin takes a close-up look at Sharp's new Zaurus SL-5000D Linux/Java PDA developer edition, from both a user and developer point of view. In the article, Epplin says the SL-5000D demonstrates that "Linux has reached maturity as an operating system for handheld devices", and concludes by saying "Overall, the polish and quality of integration of the environment and applications are excellent. Their documentation and support are first rate.""

Comments

From news.kde.org, too

[makapuf]

from news.kde.org :
(this PDA runs Qt/PDA)

Trolltech and Sharp have announced a really spiffy-looking Linux palmtop, named "Zaurus". The device itself features a sliding (retractable) keyboard, a color display, a CF expansion slot (for memory or peripherals), an SD expansion slot (for secure memory storage or other peripherals), an IR port, a USB connector and a headset port. On the software side, the Zaurus uses Lineo's Embedix Linux; Trolltech's Qt/Embedded, Qt/Palmtop and Qt AWT GUI technologies; Insignia Solution's Jeode PDA Edition; and Opera Software's embedded web browser. Sharp is accepting pre-orders from the developer community for the SL-5000D developer unit (register here). With the continuing additions to kdenox, this might just be a great platform for KOffice/embedded.
Read More...

nice toy...

[TechnoVooDooDaddy]

.. and I predict it will be buried in my closet in 30 days or less...

Why? It's just another novelty. A few apps will be developed for it, sure, but without community support that's where it will stop. I'm sure it runs linux and that's all well and nice, but you know how DIFFICULT it is to make a application that will run in that space and actually be usable?

If you'd like a PDA for daily use as a useful TOOL check out http://www.handhelds.org those folks have got it nailed down to an art, with nice apps being release seems like every day.

Re:nice toy...

[Jay Carlson]

but you know how DIFFICULT it is to make a application that will run in that space and actually be usable?

Why yes, I do.

(OK, now that I've established my credentials... :-P )

You folks should react to new products differently. New Linux products are an opportunity, not a threat.

Let's do iPaq vs Zaurus first.

The Zaurus hardware architecture is substantially similar to the iPaq. Even if the kernel sources are maintained separately, you should be able to run the same distributions on the the Sharp as on the Compaq (once we do any needed X server changes). So if you're really dedicated to the handhelds.org community, this gives you the opportunity to choose between two hardware vendors and devices to run Familiar on. Competition is good, right?

Now, what about handhelds.org/familiar vs Zaurus Linux? Well, there's still a lot of lingering questions about the efficacy of the X11 architecture for handhelds. Sharp's commitment to QTE means they've spent a lot of resources on building a nice environment on top of it. So for you, the opportunity is to let Sharp spend a lot of money finding out how well the QTE architecture really works. And if they're right, because this is Open Source you have the opportunity to take the basis of their code and use it yourself. No risk.

What about the Java angle? Jeode isn't Open Source. But PocketLinux is. (And appears to have some very active development lately.) If Jeode is doing some things right, PocketLinux gets to pick up the best of their ideas for free. The opportunity is to explore the viability of Java and alternatives for Java application architectures for handhelds, and again, at no cost to you.

Stop thinking of yourself as a member of the handhelds.org community, or the PocketLinux community, or the Agenda VR3 community.

Start thinking of yourself as a member of the Open Source community---with particular interests: handhelds, information management tools, multimedia, task mobility....

We don't know what the right answers are to all of the hard questions that face us; we don't even know all the questions. But we can share our results, change direction, and work on parts of the problems as we ourselves see fit. When companies produce Linux products, they're another research staff and contributor to this, not a dictator. That's the value proposition of Open Source in emerging technologies.

Re:nice toy...

[k4m3]

If you'd like a PDA for daily use as a useful TOOL

My PDA is a useful tool since I don't have to think about what or why it is running. I don't want to listen to kernel or OS upgrade, I don't want to hear about graphic toolkit and so on. What I want is :

• power on
• a quarter of second later, do some task _quickly_
• power off
• a quarter of second later, my PDA is out of my view

I don't want a keyboard, I don't want a CLI, I don't want a developper toy for developpers who are only looking for adding bells and whistles to functionnal apps.

But does it run Windows ?

[tmark]

Since the rejoinder to any WinCE machine is "Does it run Linux", I'm sure curious as to whether it runs Windows. Some geeks are interested in Windows machines, too, you know.

Autonomy ???

[mirko]

A friend of mine recently bought a Lisa/iPaq which appears to have the following issues:

• It is not that quick
• It has around 2 hours of autonomy which (IMHO) is unacceptable regarding the mobile position it is supposed to fulfill.

I read the article but couldn't actually get an idea of the Zaurus' autonomy.

Could somebody answer me.

Doesn't matter what it runs

[fireboy1919]

Its a PDA! I want it to do that!

Palm really has it figured out: apps that take very little memory or power, and a good handwriting recognition system.

WinCE and Pocket Windows just try to embed Windows, including the lack of speed and horrible handwriting recognition.

Now we give Linux a go. So far, it hasn't really been much of a PDA, just a port. If you have a full sized keyboard (not a little dinky one that's hard to use like this one), and a way to hook up a mouse, then you're fine. Barring that, the user interface is a pain.

What's my point? Use whatever codebase you want! Just give me an easy way to access and input my data - that's exactly what a personal digital assistant is for - NOT for general purpose computing, like a desktop.

Math/Engineering APPS

[Kronik Gamer]

Sure, this device may not seem that useful now, but in the future (if developers find that it is a viable open source platform)it may be useful for students and scientists in the future. If someone wanted to write a special program to say, calculate the materials required to hold a certain mass on a bridge, they could just port it to the PDA and not worry about lugging around a laptop or waiting to use their PC back at the office if they needed this kind of information in the field. This is just one example, but I am sure that many of you already have apps that you would like to port to a PDA.

No Windows tax, but a Java tax?

[Florian Weimer]

It seems that this is quite close to a Free Software PDA. Of course, there is that huge junk of proprietary Java stuff on it, but perhaps it's usable even without it. The hardware specs are not too overwhelming, though, it seems Sharp is a bit behind Compaq in this area.

(There's also the Trolltech announcement, if you are interested in some pictures.)

GUI woes

[mj6798]

I checked with Sharp. The device does not run X11 and, according to Sharp, there are no plans of offering it. That means that any application you write for the SL-5000 has to be either in Java or it has to be written for Qt/Embedded. Forget about easily porting existing applications you may have unless they happen to be written in Qt already. I suspect that this will prove to be a fatal limitation, but time will tell.

I'll stick with my Palm as an organizer, and with the iPaq using the Familiar distribution for developing special purpose handheld software. You can pooh-pooh X11 all you want, it works well, it uses no more resources than QTE, it's free, and it manages to run Gtk+, FLTK, wxWindows, and Qt, all on the same screen.

Forget Linux based, this is Linux Friendly

[JabberWokky]

The nice things about this are more subtle than just the fact that it *runs* Linux. First off, the sync software provided by Sharp is for Linux (and Windows). I believe the very first case of a PDA being shipped with a Linux based sync package.

Second, Sharp is setting up a totally Free developer site for the unit. Free as in Speech as well. After the disappointing "They just don't get it" with the Yopi, this is the first real, corporate sponsored open source development site for a device that I've seen. Most companies just "tolerate" open dev sites (like those for the Palm or Tivo).

Third, a keyboard (and I've no experience with this format, but have seen people get quite fast with the blackberry in a week) makes shell commands easy. And this puppy has a shell! We'll see if it's there on the consumer unit, but here's hoping it will be. Ironic that the minimalistic commands created for teletype (ls, rm, mv, cp, etc) make this the perfect environment for a minikeyboard. "cp Myf[tab]~[enter]" is 10 keypresses.

--
Evan

Battery Life Too Short

[Salamander]

According to the LinuxDevices link, the battery life is from 2 hours (backlight on) to eight hours (backlight off). Am I missing something? What good is a PDA that can't even go a full workday without suckling from the electrical teat? I'd gladly accept a smaller monochrome screen, a slower processor, and less memory if that meant a battery life that was at least a couple of days. As a point of reference, my Visor (which meets the above description) goes for several weeks on a pair of rechargeable NiMH AAA batteries. No matter how cool the technology in the Zaurus might be, it doesn't seem all that useful with such a short battery life.

Anyone who's thinking of buying something like this should stop to consider whether it's worth spending $400 for a few days of "gee whiz" before the new toy ends up in the bottom of the junk drawer with all of the other "seemed like a good idea at the time" gadgets. There are much more cost-effective forms of entertainment.

Re:Battery Life Too Short

[Salamander]

I believe most people would have it plugged in the cradle in the office to connect to their PC (and recharging).
They would then take take it to a meeting and afterwards put it back in the cradle.

I already have a device that I can leave plugged in at my desk and then take to meetings. It's called a laptop, and it's a hell of a lot better suited to that role than a PDA is. The whole point of a PDA is to go beyond where you'd take a laptop, which very often means into situations where you don't have an electrical outlet handy.

I can't think of a lot of cases where it would be used for 8 hours solid - can anyone else ?

That's an easy one. I'd like to take my PDA with me on a two- or three-day business trip, without having to pack my cradle as well. I have a Visor backup module for exactly that reason. While I'm on planes (six hours each way, across the country or across the Atlantic) I might very well use it more than two thirds of the time for a combination of jotting down notes and playing games to kill time. I'll certainly be using it when I'm at my destination to store directions and new contact information, take notes, etc. Some of that time I'll be using the backlight. Altogether I'd say 15-20 hours of continuous use between visits to the cradle is not out of the question.

Re:Battery Life Too Short

[Salamander]

One of the issues here is the definition of 'battery life.

It would be nice if they'd give a "standby" time number like they do for celphones. Eight hours of continuous use might be adequate, but I wonder how well it compares to Palm devices in non-continuous use? How thoroughly does it sleep? Palm stuff is very carefully designed - both hardware and software - so that battery use is reduced by 99% when the device is not actually in use, which is why a single set of batteries can give you weeks of occasional use. How deeply does the StrongArm sleep in the Zaurus? How about all that RAM? How well does Linux take to being comatose like that? Even if the batteries are good enough for eight hours continuously, it's a pain if I'm losing significant capacity even when it's in my pocket so that I have to plug it in every day to keep it at that capacity.

I hate to say it, but this just isn't interesting

[tgd]

Flame suit on, but whats the point of this? I bought an iPaq last week with the intention of putting one of the various Linux distributions on it, but haven't.

Why? Simple. I decide that I, like the vast majority of people who buy PDA's, want to use it for something more than a gimmicky toy.

I hate Microsoft products as much as the next guy -- I've been running Linux since 1992, almost exclusively. I have precisely one PC running a Microsoft OS (a Toshiba Libretto that I use for running diagnostic and performance data logging software for my car, which only runs on Windows). But the iPaq will be staying Pocket PC until there are applications available for it on Linux. (But of course, will they be QT applications or X applications?)

Examples:
Media Player 7.1 rocks on the iPaq. Nice big compact flash card and I can carry a movie or at least a TV show to watch on the train.
Vindigo: no problem finding restaurants or bars in Boston. Always know what movies are available.

Avantgo: I have 4 meg of news cached on it, very handy over the weekend when the girlfriend was off shopping, or I was waiting for the T.

Pocket Streets: Well, anyone who's ever driven in Boston would immediately see the usefulness of this.

Mame: Well, duh. I hope this is at least avaiable on Linux for the iPaq.

Dashboard: Excellent replacement UI for Pocket PC.

It pains me (a lot) to say it, but Microsoft has a superior product. Source code for the OS is of no fundamental use to me -- this isn't a desktop box. License fees are clearly negligible. The iPaq was $299 for a 64 meg model, essentially with the same hardware specs as this one running Linux, only $100 cheaper.

So where's the benefit other than the sheer geekiness of it? Being able to say I CAN run Linux on it covers that need in my soul, plus if anyone rips on me I can point out I hacked Linux onto three Virgin WebPlayers, an Audrey (sort of), and an iOpener at home, and my Tivo has ethernet. Installing Linux on foreign hardware just isn't that cool any more.

So basically, this Linux-on-a-PDA craze is interesting from an intellectual standpoint, but its a LONG ways away from being commercially useful, and this product will probably bomb as quickly as every other non-compatible PDA out there. Especially at $400+!

Re:tiny QWERTY only helps "hunt and peck"ist

[Mactire_Dearg]

I do know how to type, and my ring finger is size 15 so I definitely dont have "baby hands", and I love my blackberry based pager keyboard. I can do well over 40 words/minute with it using my thumbs. I have been praying for someone to get a clue and add one of these on to a PDA. All I can say is THANK YOU SHARP and GET THIS THING ON THE MARKET ASAP!!!

I've played with one

[tvf]

It's a very nice handheld. The SD and CF support is very nice (like Handera). I like the screen a lot, it's very crisp and readable, and it has good performance. You can program it in Java (Personal Java 1.2 compliant, which means a JDK 1.1.8 level, but still pretty good, and with some Java2 extensions) or Linux (you can download the cross-compilation tools from Sharp's develop site at http://developer.sharpsec.com). The Qt Palmtop is a good start, but my complaint is too much emphasis on flash (3D icons) and not enough on some nice features (like categories in the address book). I also wish it had a single-button beam feature for a business card (like the Palm's all do). It beats the crap out of an Agenda VR-3 or an iPaq running PocketLinux. If you look at it as their first entry in the market, then it's a great first step.

A thought...

[FWMiller]

The only reason I use a PDA is to keep my contacts and schedule, maybe a note here and there. I recently got a Palm-powered cell phone and pitched my PDA. Anybody else wondering if PDA enabled cell phones will kill the standalone PDA market?

FM

Re:I hate to say it, but this just isn't interesti

[tgd]

CompUSA, last week they had a $399 sale with a $100 rebate. I think the rebate is still going on, but I think the sale ended, so its probably more like $350 after rebate now.

Use the source Luke!

[Mandelbrute]

The device does not run X11

You have the kernel source.

You have the X source.

You have the hardware docs.

You have the right to modify the source.

I seem to recall seeing on ./ that there is a serious effort going on to produce a very lightweight X again.

Just because sharp haven't done everything for you doesn't mean it is useless - it looks like it could be the toy that the Newton promised to be but never was (even the calculator app used undocumented features).

Forget about easily porting existing applications

Try, but it still should be easier than porting to a palm.

Re:Use the source Luke!

[mj6798]

Just because sharp haven't done everything for you doesn't mean it is useless

Well, if you use X11 on it, you effectively lose all the built-in apps, which want to write directly to the screen buffer. That, or you have to do a lot of really hard work on X11 to make it integrate with Qt/Embedded. I think getting a different Linux PDA is a whole lot easier.

That's 8 hours of *active* use.

[Russ Nelson]

I've left mine off-cradle all day, and it's done everything I've asked of it.
-russ

Re:GUI woes - woe, no X11 by heavens!

[mj6798]

Apparently few seem to agree with you (and some others) that X11 works "well" on this current crop of handhelds. "Well" is obviously a relative term but the performance bar are other existing embedded systems as QT Palmtop Environment and Microsoft CE.

Well, on the iPaq, you can actually compare this on the same hardware: I find X11 runs better than WinCE (in addition to being more robust and easier to program).

I haven't been able to do a side-by-side comparison with Qt/Embedded, but according to Troll Tech's own specs, it seems to require more resources than X11.

At least the Sharp has a USB port

The Sharp hardware is nice. Let's hope they'll see the light and support a completely standard Linux environment.

Re:Forget Linux based, this is Linux Friendly

[JabberWokky]

Dosen't matter -- the farking thread is "redundant", according to the brilliant moderators.

--
Evan

Quick and nasty hack - console switching?

[Mandelbrute]

Well, if you use X11 on it, you effectively lose all the built-in apps, which want to write directly to the screen buffer.

How about letting user input switch between the two display systems by poking an icon with a stylus or something? Also, your other idea (X in a window on the display which is owned by another display system) has some merit - XFree86 on win* works that way. The ideal would be to recompile the existing apps for X on that platform when X is working on that platform.