PSION Resurrected By Linux

razzer writes: "The PsiLinux.org team have worked magic with getting Linux to squeeze into its new home of portable computers. Thanks to the falling prices in hardware the PSION 5mx is the most powerful, cheapest and smallest way to carry your best friend Tux in your pocket. Something no geek should leave home without. But now its gone one step further, check out http://thomas.de-ruiter.cx/projects/psion which is Tader's site. You really need to see these PicoGUI ( http://www.picogui.org/ ) screenshots. The best one has got to be this one which shows the oustandingly attractive aqua theme."

Comments

Mmm, looked at this kind of thing a while back

[Yarn]

but I decided I couldn't live without the functions the Symbian Epoc OS provides. Like the agenda, contacts, opera etc.

As I can get ssh (via java) and perl installed *anyway* running Linux on my PDA with it's tiny keyboard gives me no real benefit. Of course, I'll back up and do it some day, probably when I upgrade my PDA.

Besides, the 5MX isn't the smallest linux PDA, the Revo is smaller and also capable of running psion linux.

Re:Why?

[Over_and_Done]

Evolution will sync to a palm. Does anyone know if it will sync to a linux PDA?

Shafted by Psion, but probably not there fault...

[rixster]

My personal experience with Psion is that had a great history of leading edge technology PDA's that worked, but when I jumped on the bandwagon with a netbook (or notbook - see later), I was less than impressed with their promises of continued development
The netbook is an awesome machine - it still gets 'oohs' and 'aahs' from co-workers who haven't seen it. It's got a 640x480 touchscreen screen with full keyboard in a clamshell type design. I've got the 64Mb version with a 340Mb microdrive for any rubbish that I need. Here are the things that I absolutely love about it :
* Instant on - i.e. within a second. Beats the hell out of booting a laptop, even from sleep mode.
* The bundled apps, although minimal, are perfectly functional. Wanna write a doc, do a spreadsheet, read / write email ? Absolutely no problem
* It stops me tinkering. It just does the job
* 6 hour battery life. speaks for itself.
The things I despise :
* It's called a netbook. It's networking drivers are still 0.1, support the barest minimum of devices and frequently crash. How can you call something a netbook if it doesn't network ???!!!
* It's TCP/IP over the Irda is shockingly bad. Probably goes back to comment 1.
* Minimal, some say none, Mac support. Oh well.
* Lastly, FORGET about any further development about Epoc 6. Oh yeah I was an idiot to believe the rumours about that !!

To have a usable *nix ported to a netbook would be an absolute godsend. I could code here, code there, email, etc etc. Man I would *pay* (and I mean pay) at least 100 GBP to get my netbook running a reasonable X with just the simplest apps working.
Anyway, please keep up the great work linux -> psion porters. PLEASE !!

Psion Range

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be worth pointing out that the colour screen shots are from the Netbook and Psion 7 - mini-notebook form factor Psions, while the 5 and 5mx are palmtop clamshell style organisers with mono (16 greyscale) screens.

Having said that, the Aqua theme does look tasty enough to warrant finding a Netbook going cheap. From experience with CE professional laptops, I can say that a laptop form factor with no HDD and 'instant on' is a lot more useable than a full scale notebook by far. Add Linux? Yum!

Falling prices?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what the price should be, but the cheapest 5mx on Pricewatch.com is $499. The new Zaurus Linux PDA is $399.

Psions are a great bargain nowadays

[Qbertino]

This guy's right. If you're into buying a PDA, don't forget to check into all those Psion Sales going on just now. They're dirt cheap and even if you don't wanna bother sqeezing Linux on them, EPOC is a very good and solid PDA-OS.

Re:Psions are a great bargain nowadays

[Pembers]

If you're wondering why Psions are so cheap nowadays, it's mostly because Psion have stopped making them. The reasons are complicated, but I suspect it comes down to a form of the British disease: we invented many things that the modern world takes for granted, but we're hopeless at making money out of them.

I agree that the OS is rock-solid. I've owned three Psions in the last 4 1/2 years, and have had exactly one crash in that time. This resulted when I let my girlfriend's eight-year-old nephew play with the machine, a testing method I recommend to anyone who thinks they write stable code ;-)

I wouldn't swap my 5mx for any variety of WinCE, nor for a Palm. Many people don't realise that Psions are true handheld computers, whereas most PDAs are more like detachable peripherals for a desktop machine. Many Psion users don't even own a desktop.

The thing that drew me to Psion in the first place (apart from patriotism) was their excellent keyboards. It saddens me that most newer PDAs have, at best, sorry excuses for keyboards. I can type a lot faster than I can write with a pen, especially on a slippery surface like an LCD. Perhaps I'm atypical, but I enter a lot of text while I'm on the move. The wordprocessor is the most-used application on my Psion, followed by Contacts. I hardly use the Agenda on it. My favourite program for it, though, has to be the ZX Spectrum emulator that actually runs faster than the original on some games. So I suppose I don't fit too well into the target market for all these new Linux-based PDAs (when one actually appears on the shelves), because I don't need to be told minute-by-minute where I'm supposed to be, nor do I want to surf the web on a 2-inch screen or listen to the same 20 MP3s while I go there.

Damn... I'm getting nostalgic for a machine that isn't even officially dead yet. Psion have said they'll support them for the next couple of years. I take my hat off to these guys for the cool hack, but I think we won't see the true utility of Linux on a 5mx until Psion's support ceases.

I advise against buying a Psion

[Pentagram]

I bought a Psion Revo Plus last September. I managed to break it, and for the last three months have ben trying to get it repaired. Emails to Psion's technical support section, then webmaster, etc., just get ignored. They seem to have nothing but contempt for their customers.

Nice hardware, shame about the company.

Re:Shafted by Psion, but probably not there fault.

[mattfoster]

I think you'll find that the kernel already works on the Netbook. In fact there is a shot at the psilinux site.

The speed at which things seem to be developing is really exciting, and so i wouldnt be surprised if there was a working X server before long.

Just before Xmas there was no kernel or anything for the Revo, and now I have it booting and running no problem....

just give it some time :)

Re:Why?

[micahjd]

Well, there is a larger reason behind themes... I explain this some on picogui.org, but the themes in PicoGUI are mostly for defining the look completely separately from the application or the GUI code itself.

As for the synchronization, PIM, etc. to go along with a Linux PDA, that's where there are lots of options. Microwindows, X, Qt/Embedded.. and PicoGUI. To me, the best reason to run Linux on a handheld is to take advantage of cross-platform applications. Especially in a GUI designed for scalability, you should be able to run the same app (with a recompile if it's in a compiled language of course) on a Helio, VR3, Psion, Zaurus, or a laptop.

PSION long history with linux

[harkal]

Linux was ported long time ago to the old PSION Series 3, throught it's ELKS little brother. Look at this site for more info.

Re:Psions are a great bargain nowadays-bull

[Lumpy]

Every place I checked the Psion 5mx was pricey.
Sales? where? I dont call pricing it the same as the new Sharp Zaurus as on sale.

A search on ebay for used ones the average price is $160.00

If there are great sales on these items post a link to where, as 5 different E-tailers list them as really really pricey.

Cool, now if only psion 5/5mx lasted 2years

[yani]

This is great, and I was really into linux on the psion when my screen flexi-cable gave out. And no this is not unusual, it is a design defect and catches all psion 5/5mx's eventually. want to know the really sad part? Psion insists on replacing the whole screen for $250.

If your thinking of buying a psion 5/5mx just be aware that it dosn't last very long, there are planty of other faults, don't get me wrong I loved the machine and psion, I owned a psion 3a before it, but I finally just got fed up with Psion's consistantly bad reliability.

what works and what dont

[SKicker]

ive been tinkering with this for a little while. Its a great machine.

Heres what works:

- infrared, just like a serial infrared on your desktop! (irattach and away you go).
- serial (connect it to your desktop with pppd)
- framebuffer console (640x240 4bpp)
- power on and off (deep sleeps the psion)
- backlight
- install a full debain-arm distro! (basically anything console that works on your desktop will work on the psion at the moment)
- great for running your favourite editor, irc, lynx etc.

Heres what dont work:

- X works but without keyboard or touchpanel support yet.
- sound (apparently it should be easy to write a driver but noone has got round to it yet)
- contrast controls
- uses more power than EPOC (even when 'off') but probably not huge difference in battery life.

Heres some problems with it:

- cant use IBM microdrives, only compact flash
- only 16meg memory, and swap on a flash card isnt a good idea (flash has a limited number of write cycles)
- a bit slow (36Mhz, emulated FPU)
- no specific distro for it yet (ie nothing like familiar for the ipaq, although most of familiar will run on it cos they are both ARM machines).

Wouldnt it be great if someone managed to buy the rights to build these machines again running linux instead of EPOC? I recommend snapping up a cheap second hand one while your still can.