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First Looks at Linux DA PDA

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the all-this-for-under-a-hundred-clams dept.

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.

5 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Irony: by Cheetah86 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The irony here is while it promotes linux as a pda system, the datasync feature is available for windows only right now.

  2. License? Trademark? Proprietary programs? by mj6798 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The AgendaVR, Yopy, and Sharp PDAs are "Linux PDAs". This is a proprietary PDA that happens to use a Linux kernel. Other than that, you'll have an easier time writing applications using open source tools for the Palm than for this thing.

    What bugs me about this is not that some company is using the Linux kernel to build a proprietary PDA, but the fact that they so prominently use the Linux name. 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.

    I also wonder whether the company even still has the right to use the Linux kernel. They failed to make source code available for months (I requested it), even though they were distributing binaries. That was a violation of the GPL, and once you violate it, you lose the right to use the code. Also, the source code that they did finally distribute is a mess, and I have my doubts that it even corresponds to the kernel that they ship, which would constitute another GPL violation.

  3. ueber geek! by jazzman45 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Promotional Photo? A) Why would any self-respecting company use this photo? and B) I feel sorry for whoever this is.

  4. Re:from the review ... he'd recommend it if it wor by crimoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Hrm... just think of it... by ppetru · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow, there's a new PDA out! Let's hack it and put Linux on it!

    ... oh, wait, it already runs Linux. Move on geeks, nothing to hack here :)

    --

    Petru