Slashdot Mirror
Linux On The Dell Axim
An anonymous reader points to this interesting project to run the Familiar Linux distribution on the Dell Axim. "It includes a picture of the Axim running Linux and directions for loading Linux on the Dell Axim from the CF card. Looks like a good start to this project." It's limited for now (crashes after 15 minutes, must be loaded through the installed version of Windows), but everything starts out that way.
or are you just happy to see me?
Why does it give me a 404 saying the article doesn't exist? Come on, get some database consistency going!
step by step guide to installing linux on the axim for dummies.
Have fun.
There is no god
Why is the goal now to run linux on everything, from your xbox to your "Pocket PC" I understand the xbox, but will running linux on your pocket pc really be useful? is it even worth the effort, or is it just something cool.
These guys are getting too good at imitating the competition!
Relax, it was supposed to be funny.
Now waiting for the obligatory soon-to-be-Slashdotted "I'm running Apache on my Axim!" news item ...
Using the Axim as a X client on a wireless network would be kind of like having a kick ass linux remote control.
...deck of 52 of these.
(Fooled ya, didn't I!)
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Because good is dumb.
Well, I do congratulate this fellow on putting Linux on the Axim, but it seems to me that it has no purpose at all... If you really wanted to do something for the coolness of it all, I would like to see an Axim running Mac OS X, and burning CDs. That would be worth posting about.
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
Before I read the article I thought the submitter was having fun poking RedHat (or in the case of slashdot... gentoo), not stating the actual distro used, but just saying that it's very familiar.
Who would have thought (besides those who actually does dev stuff on handhelds) that there actually is such thing as Familiar Linux!
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
I see that it runs Qtopia from Trolltech. Is that GPL or not? I didn't think it was, of course I could be wrong. It's great to see KDE's portable cousin on this thing.
If you don't run linux on it, you can't make a beowulf cluster out of it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
We've seen Linux scale from as small as wristwatches to mainframes (both courtesy of IBM, oddly enough). So porting Linux to any particular handheld with an MMC is almost blase now :|
Now if only they could make it usable beyond 15min...
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Once its stable, the applications will come..
Then you arent tied to Microsoft for your updates/licenses/applications/privacy/etc.. You can do as you please.. Its called 'freedom'..
Unless there comes a time when the hardware agreement forbids you to run anything but what is given you ( such as Xbox.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How is this likely to change the market for PDAs?
A little, a lot?
Is it likely that HP Ipaqs or Dell Axims will be the preferred pocket pc platform for running linux?
If you were going to buy a new device would it already run linux?
It seems that a Dell device that could run linux would mean lower prices for the performance, particularly for vertical applications.
I already have a Dell Axim so my decision is made but I am curious to see how this new development will affect people who haven't bought a pocket device and already run linux.
(And I am aware of the Sharp linux PDAs)
Crashes after 15 minutes? Well, you have to register it of course! =P
Walking around a campus checking signal strength with something like this is real nice.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
you have the other 'cheap' PocketPC, I have accomplished much the same on the iPAQ h1910, of course with the support of the handhelds.org team. Come visit us on IRC on irc.freenode.net, channel #handhelds.org - and say that joshua_ sent you :)
~joshua
I just happened to be on Dell's web sight looking for a low end Mircosoft 2000 Power Edge to use as a print server and noted that an OS option was "Red Hat Linux 9.0"
zenray
The Sharp Zaurus 5500 et al support Linux, in fact, they SHIP with Linux. Install OpenZaurus and you have real Linux, yet with real apps, SSH, etc. etc. And it runs longer than 15 minutes.
I mean, this is cool, but hardly the breaking story of the decade.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
- SSH(which I have yet to see for ppc.
- Coding in other languages than the M$ langs
- xterm
- testing embedded stuff
Its a small, shallow pool of users but for cheap geeks who want to play with operating systems(that might be 99% of us) this is a good way to play embedded linux on a system that we use for other things.consistent user interface? what? if I go on linux box #1 and type echo "hi" then go to linux box #2 and type echo "hi". they will both spit out the same thing! whats not consistent about that?
Cats: All your base are belong to us.
Captain: Take off every sig !!
BTW... great job at just writing the same flamebait over and over http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=68796&cid=6290 139
Cats: All your base are belong to us.
Captain: Take off every sig !!
I have to ask...
How is this any more useful than just going out and buying a Zaurus? I'm not being snide. I can totally understand the tinker factor. But what does it really get you over what you can already get with the current crop of embedded Linux PDAs?
Why just don't you get Zaurus SL-5600 ? Same hardware as Axim and it has keyboard!
The most important is that your money go to company
supporting Linux on PDA!
When you buy Axim - your money goes to Dell and Microsoft and neither of them suport Linux on PDAs!
There is so much talk about no Linux notebooks
- here you have a very good Linux option,
why don't you support it ?
IF NOTHING ELSE.. Maybe we can finally escape the "Pocket IE" crap.. how about mozilla for axim! Incidentally, anybody know what the deal with the Windows Mobile 2003 upgrade from Dell is? I got my axim a few weeks ago and I have yet to find how I can get the upgrade.
It's limited for now (crashes after 15 minutes, must be loaded through the installed version of Windows), but everything starts out that way.
Or in the case of Microsoft Windows ME Upgrade Edition, stays that way!
For that terminal application, almost half the screen is taken up by useless junk (buttons, tabs, etc.). With a GUI like that, Linux won't stand much of a chance competing against Palm or even PPC. Unfortunately, the same is true of many of the applications on my Zaurus.
According to the article, the device won't crash after 15 if the suspend mode is disabled. RTFA. :)
Imagine a 400mhz Axim with good game controlers and a ipod-size hard drive.
Movies, games, emulators, with that kind of hardware the sky's the limit.
It was very clever... and original!
reboot it and *poof*
pigfukr
that Linux on an Axim is not your only choice, don't you?
Sheesh.
I would like to buy the entry 300 MHz edition for personal use (mp3, streaming mpeg to it, web from my bed, etc), development (pocketpc 2003 to testbed stuff...i know there are emulators but id rather have the real deal), and to run linux on.
The later is a big one. If I can run linux and all real linux tools on this badboy. Even if its not possible now will it be in the future with the same hardware as I buy today?
Wouldn't mind being able to run kismet, airsnort, airtraf etc from one of these. PS can this be done with an SD memory card? I'd prefer to run it from that and have an 802.11b WiFi in my compactflash.
thanks.
You said "crash" and "Linux" in the same sentence! Now /. is gonna have a week of Linuxnazis barking up poor Timothy's tree.
I figure that portrait mode is better for the non-CLI crowd (e.g. windows users) and landscape is better for CLI users. This looks perfect, if a little big. SSH from anywhere!
See the gadgeterr review to get an idea of the real size. http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/021112.htmlm l
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/sharp-c700-review.ht
It made me smile
> a consistent user interface
bash is pretty consistent. Just because you choose a different candy coating to go around it than someone else doesn't make it not.
> easy OS install
If this is what you're concerned about, Redhat is reportedly easier to install than Windows. Enjoy.
> decent media player
mplayer and xmms. What more do you need, for chrissake?
Linux is VERY generic. But linux is both a horizontally and vertically integrated environment.
That is, many parts of linux are specially aimed at certain target platforms and environment. Also, it helps that linux itself is a very small thing, just a device intergration framework, scheduler, and set of required libraries to help software get onto the ground floor. E
You get app frameworks on top of it that are targetted to the platform that you run linux on.
To backpedal, the only real thing that makes one linux the same as another is the syscall numbers, filesystem layout, and the names of structures in header files, which is all designed so that you can take C source on one machine and trivially rebuild it for another and have it work the same way. But under the hood, the code powering one architecture may be vastly different than the next.
You'll notice if you unpack the kernel source that there are whole directories containing special-purpose files for different architectures, and many places where macros or #if statements are used to implement architecture-specific behaviors.
As for vertical expansion:
For example, on handhelds you have the "Familiar" linux distribution, which has specialty tools to deal with flash, a light-weight GUI, etc.
TiVO has it's own distro, NAS boxes usually use a version of it running with security patches and a limited number of tools (if any, maybe just a stand-alone app)
Full-fledged end-user distros come with a bazillion bells and whistles, 3d hardware support, Office suites, etc.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
crashes after 15 minutes
Wow, linux has finally acheived the stability levels of Windows!
Boy are you missing the point.
The memory allocation of the Linux alows it to boot as an os even though it is not using effectively all the file storage access. Try that with a windows based os. Thump, crunch, no go! Put the Linux on its flash rom instead of pocket pc then you will have a real compact versatile os.
The memory mapping work done by the guy who wrote it is brilliant.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
"Why is the OSS community so obsessed with re-inventing the wheel? (Or Unix for that matter...) Lets see another desktop model, for example, instead of Yet Another Windows Clone..."
Without re-engineering compition to Microsoft we will within 5 years have, surrendered all digital communication technology world-wide to one small consortium.
Nothing less than this is the corporate manifesto of Microsoft. If it can't control absolutely then it perverts through lobby in Washington D.C.
Of course MS never does any re-engineering, it just hires legions of virgins with a legal clean status to code only in their own version of C languages. It then has the dirty people tell them what bits they are to work on. Innovation? you be the judge!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!