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.

Comments

Is that Linux in your pocket...

[Joey Patterson]

or are you just happy to see me?

linux on everything

[jnguy]

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.

Re:linux on everything

[Anonymous Coward]

You're new around here, aren't you?

Re:linux on everything

[Erwos]

As someone who's done a Linux install on his iPaq 3150, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

You get far more flexibility, device support, and free software with Linux than PocketPC. Perhaps the only niggle is that you can't really get a browser into 16mb of RAM without constant crashes, but the Axim and newer iPaqs do not suffer from this problem. A nice side effect of storing everything in flash is that running out of battery only resets your clock, not your data.

It's not for everyone, but I think it was worth my time...

-Erwos

Re:linux on everything

[Surak]

In a way, it's kind of useful from an advocacy point of view. We can truly say that we have an operating system that scales to virtually any device, large or small, and can run on virtually any processor technology. Linux runs on anything from PDAs and small embedded devices to IBM mainframes today. You can't say that about *any* of its competition.

Re:linux on everything

[be-fan]

NetBSD doesn't scale to large way SMP machines.

Re:linux on everything

[Surak]

Admittedly, while NetBSD *does* provides support for a wide range of processor platforms, it's still not as scalable as Linux, and hasn't been ported to nearly as many devices in a useable form. Not that I'm trivializing NetBSD -- it is very scalable and runs on a lot of stuff -- but Linux is a lot more versatile thanks to the support of a lot of dedicated developers and the commercial support given to them from big companies like IBM.

Re:linux on everything

[TobySmurf]

Haha, > Does it run on Itanium3? No, only windows does. Wait until the I3 actually ships before you claim things like that. I have used it on I2s and it works (and works well). > Does it run on 8-way Xeon servers? No, only windows does. Yup. Installed it, played with it, wished I could take it home (Dell 8450 Server) > Does it run on Xbox? No, only windows does. http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/ :-)

Re:linux on everything

[Surak]

In addition to what TobySmurf said (all of which is true), it's not fair to call Windows CE and Windows NT/2000/XP the same OS. The two systems are entirely different codebases. Even the APIs have signficant differences.

Re:linux on everything

[dubStylee]

will running linux on your pocket pc really be useful?

I'm someone who didn't pay enough attention to that question a few months ago and is way sorry now, here's my story:

1. I purchase the Toshiba e740 with pocketPC 2002
for $600

2. Six months later pocketPC 2003 comes out and Toshiba declinces to make it available to e740 users.

I now have no possibility of any kind of upgrade for any of my software. I am stuck with what was available pre-2003 for the rest of the life of the device. Now if Toshiba leaks out enough information about their hardware to allow someone to port linux to it, I could eventually upgrade the software.

Re:linux on everything

[Strudelkugel]

Someday M$ will announce the KitchenPC blender. It will network to your fridge so that you will know when you can make a smoothie. The instant it is announced, a collection of OSS coders will begin porting Linux to it. Six months later, M$ will drop the blender effort, but will have spent its real effort on something useful to someone (ok, another service pack!)

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...

Re:linux on everything

[SignificantBit]

i'm been around linux since maybe 6 or 5 years, and have a PocketPC since 2. An Ipaq to be accurate. The point on having linux on this kind of devices are several. As other have point out, one is to be able to say "you can ran linux on a toaster". ie, linux is flexible and powerful -as a tech platform ("you CAN do with linux whatever you want") and as a development model ("you MAY di with linux whatever you want"). Other point, is options. Monopolies lead nowhere, all slashdoter know this. I know, there is Palm, but seriously, Palm aren Pocket PCs, they are PDA, and i think there is a differece. Finally, but not less important, people put linux on everything because they can. Miself, i haven't move from Windows CE to Linux because there is a severe lack of sync tools. Even inside open source software. I still depend on Outlook because of that. I want to move all my things to Evolution but but i cant cause linux or not on my PocketPC i still can't sync.

Re:linux on everything

[Surak]

No, I haven't used Linux, but a great many argument I've read and agree with have to be usability and nativity to the platform. If Linux isn't native to anything, then who uses it on what? When will standards be developed?

Au contraire! Linux is native to *every* platform it runs on.

It's important to note that the Linux kernel, along with the pieces of GNU system that you need to run with it (gcc, glibc, GNU toolchain, etc.) are written in C, which is a mostly portable language. Some parts of the kernel were written in assembler, although I *think* that has changed, and those parts originally had to be ported to each processor, but again, I think this has changed.

In any respect, Linux is ported to each processor it runs on. Most of the work done in porting Linux to a new platform involves porting gcc and glibc, and then optimizing the kernel and those pieces to run well on that platform, including doing obvious stuff like moving from 32-bit to 64-bit, little endian vs. big endian, etc., but other things including optimizing for the way that that platform handles memory, for instance, optimizing pieces that are timing critical, and writing device drivers for different pieces of the I/O system, etc. (I've never done the work myself, so if I've missed something, hopefully someone more capable than myself will point that out, but this is basically the process as I understand it)

So there you have it...Linux is native on every platform it runs on.

Crashes after 15min?

[Eberlin]

These guys are getting too good at imitating the competition!

Relax, it was supposed to be funny.

Re:Crashes after 15min?

[NotAnotherReboot]

If they're aiming for imitating the competition, they should write in random crashes. It always crashes after 15 minutes, but why not allow it to crash at 8 minutes, and later at 13 minutes? Keep the users on the edge of their seats!

Re:Crashes after 15min?

[SoSueMe]

Article: "Though, beware that it currently [colon] panics after about 15 minutes, and when you do the hard reset, it boots back into Windows at factory default settings (meaning, you lose any files you might have stored on it)".

Imitation is the sincerest form of flatulence.

Re:Crashes after 15min?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or introduce a version of Clippy that goes something like...

It looks like you're doing something important
Would you like:
* A BSOD
* An obscure error message followed by a BSOD
* A call from Doc Watson that shuts off the app
* Info on whom all your base are belong to conveniently placed on a BSOD

Re:Crashes after 15min?

[Moses Lawn]

It should be configurable, preferably with an XML file and an arcane UI. If I want my Axim to crash after 12 minutes, I should be able to.

It's all about choice, dammit!

*waiting*

[Anonymous Coward]

Now waiting for the obligatory soon-to-be-Slashdotted "I'm running Apache on my Axim!" news item ...

linux remote

[tobes]

Using the Axim as a X client on a wireless network would be kind of like having a kick ass linux remote control.

Re:linux remote

[dubStylee]

Using the Axim as a X client on a wireless network would be kind of like having a kick ass linux remote control.

You don't need linux for that. You can run VNC from pocketpc OS.

Imagine a...

[Atario]

...deck of 52 of these.

(Fooled ya, didn't I!)

Linux on this, linux on that

[r84x]

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.

Familiar Linux?

[MoThugz]

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!

Duh

[Hatta]

If you don't run linux on it, you can't make a beowulf cluster out of it.

Another day another port

[lavalyn]

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...

Useful, in time.

[nurb432]

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.. )

HP vs Dell for PocketPC Linux

[AngusH]

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)

Re:HP vs Dell for PocketPC Linux

[MonMotha]

Well, currently, there are HP employees (researchers, formerly Compaq, formerly DEC employees) helping with making it work on HP iPAQ units. This helps the iPAQ porting efforts go quicker than ports to other company's handhelds. However, the product cycle time on iPAQs seems to have gotten pretty short recently, and we're having troubel keeping up with the model families as they come out (54xx support is appearing, 19xx bootldr work is in progress currently).

Dell doesn't exactly provide info for these projects. Most of this is entirely reverse engineered (which is partially why WinCE is still needed to do HW init, but also as a bootstrap in this case). I'm amazed he's managed to get a kernel booting, let alone OPIE running!

Nagware Linux

[SynKKnyS]

Crashes after 15 minutes? Well, you have to register it of course! =P

Re:Qtopia?

[morbuz]

Qtopia is available under the GPL;
http://www.trolltech.com/download/qtopia/

Re:Qtopia?

[nadavspi]

Actually, it's running Opie, or Open Palmtop Integrated Environment, which is an improved clone of Qtopia. Opie IS open source, and really much better than it's older brother.

Folks that think this isn't a big deal...

[AltGrendel]

...never had walk around doing site check of a wireless network using a laptop.

Walking around a campus checking signal strength with something like this is real nice.

Re:Folks that think this isn't a big deal...

[fathomDragon]

Walking around a campus checking signal strength with something like this is real nice.

Can you ping me now? Good.

Linux on Dell's Power Edge 650

[zenray]

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"

Obligatory Zaurus quote

[Gothmolly]

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.

Why not?

[gpmart]

I know that I will indeed sound like a rube, but isn't a pocket pc really just a toy anyway? I use my Axim to surf the web wirelessly and check my mail, but most of the time I use it just as a toy. Who really does word processing on these things? You can't take notes. Even surfing is pretty painful. On the toy side, however its a relatively useful device. Its multimedia capabilities are pretty good(its a good MP3 player and a good ebook reader(which allows me to read linux docs)) but I think people that have the geek positive gene wouldn't mind playing with something new simply for the toy potential. Ultimately, their are some upsides to these things:

• 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.

Re:This is the problem with Linux

[fishynet]

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?

Web browsing.

[atheken]

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.

Everything starts out that way..

[Peter Cooper]

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!

Re:Game Console?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"with that kind of hardware the sky's the limit."

With that kind of hardware, the battery is the limit.

Ultimate linux PDA? Sharp SL-C700

[Craggles]

This runs linux natively, why not support Sharp for doing this. It has a full , usable keyboard, and runs in landscape mode OR portrait mode.

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.html
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/sharp-c700-review.htm l