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?

Crashes after 15min?

[Eberlin]

These guys are getting too good at imitating the competition!

Relax, it was supposed to be funny.

*waiting*

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:linux on everything

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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 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.

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!

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...

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: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.

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: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.