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Linux to Power Most Motorola Phones
raffe writes "Motorola will begin selling its first cell phone based on Linux this year and says most future models will follow suit, a major sign of the growing popularity of operating system outside its stronghold on high-end computers."
Whoop-tee-fucking doo.
It's a phone. As long as it lets me place calls, who cares what OS it runs on?
Come one, it's got linux in the title, does that make it news?
You bet it is. One of the big three mobile phone manufacturers has said it's not going to be following the rest of the herd with Symbian but is going with an alternative. That in itself is huge news - the mobile phone market is gigantic - almost certainly the single most important embedded software market - and Symbian was expected to walk it, and win over every major manufacturer. Instead, as we see, it's not. Even without looking at it from a Linux perspective, it's a big thing.
At the same time, from a Linux perspective, it's even bigger. It's an enormous win, it'll keep MontaVista and their partners afloat for years. It's also a huge boost to Linux's status in the embedded world - a manufacturer as large as Motorola doesn't choose an OS for their phones lightly. This is a market Microsoft has been spending hand over fist to get into, and failing apart from with a few niche players (one of whom, Sendo, very publicly dumped Microsoft for Symbian)... and yet Linux waltzes in with no budget behind it and captures a Big Three manufacturer without even trying, and in the face of competition from Symbian who have a very very sharp phone OS of their own.
So yes it's news.
This is very good news! All it takes is a couple large companies like this to adopt Linux (e.g. for embedded systems, perfect use for Linux).
Everyone on slashdot loves desktop PCs and laptops, but the vast majority of computing power in the world exists in embedded systems like in your car, home appliances, portable gadgets, etc. These little systems really run the world.
So when embedded systems engineers get hooked on Linux, believe me, that's huge.
Linux scales: From mainframes to microprocessors. Windows can't do that. There isn't a single Windows CE/ PocketPC that does anything useful in less than 8MB. This may not look like a problem since memory and processing power are getting cheaper, but remember that Moore's law applies only to silicon, not to the batteries powering the silicon.
PalmOS and Symbian have good playing cards as well, being lean and mean and having a relatively large number of PDA applications ready for use, but they may lack portability of some typical desktop applications.
As for the phones; Can I run bash using voice commands?
I say this as someone who was actually contracting for Motorola, when a rant came down from management demanding that everyone use Motorola phones. I wonder if anyone was actually brave enough to actually tell him why none of the workforce were using their phones...
Anyway, I hope the situation has changed and management has gotten a clue. No one will eat a cake that looks like a giant dog turd even if it is made of delicious marzipan. The same goes for running Linux in a phone.
I'm sorry, but that is blatently false.
Everyplace I've seen/worked at/heard about uses the following:
Real Unix for the high-end stuff
Windows for the middle tier stuff
Linux (if at all) for the low tier, security type stuff (possibly filesharing but mostly firewalling)
Remember, your water cooled athlon does not equal a high-end computer!
You just can't see it.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I'm not so sure. For starters, modifying GPL'ed software does not require you to make the source available, distributing it does. The software isn't, strictly speaking, being distributed, the phone is. I'd imagine that this would still count as distribution for licensing pruposes, but I can see the potential for Motorola to claim that it's not necessary. Obviously, the right thing for Motorola to do would be to make the source available, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
All that said, Nokias have cool games, so many accessories and addons it's almost hard to fathom. BUT, they get VERY poor reception across the board. My Mitsubishi phone had great reception, great battery life, took standard home accessories, and was easy to navigate; but was basic and sorta heavy, not clunky like the "sattelite phone sized original analog Motos" but still clunky.
The point is, every phone has it's problems. My current is a Sony Ericcson t68i, I like it more than any phone I have ever had. I just feel like I'm going to break it. Accessories are few and far between, and the neat features need refinement.
As for Moto embedding Linux, this will only be of use if they can get full functionality of a small PC by using the PowerPC, iPod like size (with hard drive of iPod too), color screen, great battery life. Then, maybe if it can run some of the Mac emulators out there under it's Linux, like the Sharp Zaurus can, then that would be beyond useful, if not revelutionary.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I'm getting tired of stories like this and "Home Depot to use Linux in cash registers." First, we're just talking about the Linux kernel and some device drivers. We're not talking about X11, bash, a window manager, KDE, Mesa, or anything like that. Just a kernel and some device drivers.
This has nothing to do with the general "popularity" of Linux. Test time: Name any of the 10+ other operating systems used in embedded devices? Can't name them? Exactly.
There's getting to be a more than a little annoying "Linux is the only operating system and should be used in everything from PCs to microwaves" rally. Doesn't that sound a whole lot like what Microsoft has been saying since the mid 1990s?
I've following the OS debate for smartphones for a couple years now, because I am from Europe an seemingly everyone wants a cellphone and smartphone technology eventually trickles down to normal phones as well.
This means that the number of phones (and therefore of OSs on them) will soon surpass or is already bigger than the number of PCs. Any OS that will dominate that market will have the biggest installer base of all OSs in the world and will sell more licences than MS.
The most interesting event was when Psion gave up its control of their embedded OS called Epox and now shares control with Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola. The new name is Symbian.
Motorola is the only one that for some reason still can't make up its mind how to power their smartphones and has been trying j2me for a while now. Siemens and Samsung got on the Symbian train last year.
The problem with Symbian is that it is still very unstable on some phones which is the reason why they don't give out kits for the P800. Many apps seem to stall the system.
Imagine writing a killer app for an OS that dominates the mobile market. Symbian is pretty new and still doesn't have many of the most basic app written for it. Any future Bill Gates readings this?
Good Luck! If Symbian will ever turn out to dominate. And the chances are still pretty high.
Our concern is about making the best experience for developers. We feel it's going to be the developer experience that drives these devices, not the operating system itself," Kaim said.
Uh, so let me get this straight.
What he really said was "Even though Microsoft is aware our software products may be bloated and massive memory hogs, the fact that developers have a really neat toy to utilize these systems is what will make our device the leading one."
I get that right?
-- El Sacarino tiene gusto de la chocha
"Lets keep politics out of our technology purchasing decisions"
Impossible with M$ running rampant, I'm afraid.
That was classic intercourse!
Once again another Java win too.
It may be Linux based, but it can run Java apps along with the rest of the phone world.
Despite what many posters have said, no, you don't need an OS for a cell phone. Any software or firmware application can be created without an OS. In complex applications, however, it's usually more cost-effective to use one.
Linux will have to run as a separate task in a real-time kernel. And to do so will require a more powerful processor which of course requires more either a much-larger lithium ion battery, or something revolutionary like fuel cells.
Or a more efficient but faster processor. You've heard of Moore's Law right? Use a smaller feature size, maximum clock speed goes up, power consumption goes down. These phones are going to have to be more powerful anyway, they're going to be expected to drive colour displays that can play video and run Java games at decent speeds. If you've got a processor that can do that then the extra overhead of RTLinux or RTAI or LXRT to give you sub-microsecond interrupt response is pretty minimal.
Note that Symbian is only available on high-end phones right now too, but it's expected to trickle down to the lower-end once the processors, memory and screens that can handle its requirements become cheaper. Symbian isn't really any lighter than a properly-stripped Linux anyway, it needs at least 8MB RAM to be properly usable and prefers a lot more.
We all know that technical merit is the sole deciding factor of sucess in the market, right?
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
First, we're just talking about the Linux kernel and some device drivers.
:)
And that's what Linux is. A kernel. This might be one of the rare cases where everyone agrees we can leave off the "GNU/" at the beginning, so just hush up!
This has nothing to do with the general "popularity" of Linux.
It has everything to do with the general popularity of Linux. Name five other kernels that scale from cell-phones to super-clusters.
"Linux is the only operating system and should be used in everything from PCs to microwaves" rally. Doesn't that sound a whole lot like what Microsoft has been saying since the mid 1990s?
The big difference is that Linus isn't trying to leverage his desktop monopoly into control of cell-phones and super-clusters. He's just offering his software up to the world, and letting the world make its own choices. Moreover, Linus isn't saying, "here's my system, you should use it everywhere," he's saying, "here's my system, if you like, you can adapt it to fit your needs," and people are responding, "oh cool, look, I can adapt it to fit here...and here...and here...."
But the biggest difference is that Linus isn't saying "use my software to run your cell-phone and super-cluster, or I'll do everything in my power to lock your system out of talking to my desktop."