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First Looks at Linux DA PDA
e1en0r writes "My Linux DA PDA finally arrived yesterday. It's a great PDA for under $100. I put up a review of it here. It's very similar to the Palm OS, with a few more interesting features. The most notable being the file manager. You can see where everything is and view all the files in text and hexadecimal mode. It also appears that you can overclock the 16 MHz DragonBall CPU up to 25 MHz. There are some screenshots on their site, which include the CPU Speed application. Unfortunately that application is lacking in documentation." The review is a little thin, but its still cool seeing these in the wild.
The irony here is while it promotes linux as a pda system, the datasync feature is available for windows only right now.
It looks like a Palm , only chunkier.
It runs very little software and won't sync.
A linux PDA that doesn't even attempt to sync with anything other than Windows and then fails anyway ?
Seems like a pointless device. Why try to emulate a palm anyway ? If you're going to take them on try to be BETTER.
Seems like a joke device. I wonder if the reviewer would be favourable at all if it wasn't a linux based device ?
I'm a big fan of Linux, but why would I want this instead of kicking a few bucks extra and actually getting a Palm device?
I'm serious here; my Visor does what I want it to, does this solve some problem that existing PDAs don't? It seems like sort of a tough sell, especially when the device has only 15 apps.
Pointless to you (as a Linux user), yes. Pointless to them (as a company), no way. One of the great things about Linux (and Open Source in general) is that everyone now has this awesome repository of code that they can pull from. No longer do people need to start at ground zero in their development cycle, rather they can plunk in code from the Open Source community and get a real jump start.
Now, to get Linux "at the right end" companies just need to be convinced that there is a large enough paying population to justify putting out a product. My bet would be that this is less likely to happen. Even if a company put out a great product that ran on Linux it would likely be cloned, forked, warez or simply not purchased. Typical Linux users don't want to pay for code; if its not Free (as in beer) they don't want it. Now there are some that will plunk down some $$ for a project they like or an application that they need, but overall there is no large market for commercial Linux desktop applications.
I wonder if the reviewer would be favourable at all if it wasn't a linux based device
Nope. The product wouldn't even get to market. Inferrior products don't go anywhere unless they've got some reason to survive. In this case the company hopes that Linux users will buy it (over Palm, etc.) simply because it runs Linux, not because it has better features.
The AgendaVR, Yopy, and Sharp PDAs are "Linux PDAs". This is a proprietary PDA that happens to use a Linux kernel.
So what's a non-proprietary PDA?
This is not a "Linux" PDA in any useful sense: it doesn't run Linux utilities, it thumbs its nose at the open source process, and even its kernel software development appears to take part outside the Linux community.
And the opposite is true of the VR3. It runs desktop-style Linux utilities, complete and Open Source is available for everything on the box, and the kernel is a relatively standard linuxvr/linuxmips kernel.
I think the only way you could claim the VR3 is a "proprietary PDA" is that the schematics and license for the hardware are not freely available. But by that standard, the hardware you're using right now is proprietary. (OK, there are probably a few slashdot readers on homebrew/reference/open hardware right now; feel free to hit reply...)
The VR3 isn't perfect. It has many things wrong with it. But it's the flag carrier for development of PDA systems Linux-style. Well, handhelds.org wins for repurposing the iPaq hardware, but Compaq isn't corporately dedicated to supporting Linux on that PDA.
(Insert rant about what "Linux" really means here. Imagine I claimed that glibc+kernel was the most useful definition right now.)
Well, I didn't make that claim. In fact, I gave the VR3 as an example of what I would consider a true Linux PDA, as opposed to to the "Linux DA".
In fact, I like my VR3 a lot. The only thing it really needs is an MMC expansion slot.
Forgot to turn on the brain again?