Lycoris Shipping Linux OS For Handhelds

Bill Kendrick writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, it appears Lycoris has put together an OS for handhelds like the iPAQ and Zaurus. It's based on the Open Source OpenZaurus and OPIE projects, so it should look pretty familiar to Linux-on-PDA fans."

Comments

Excellent!

[nil5]

Now I can fit my geekiness in my pants pocket and take it to parties and pick up girls and . . .

/me wakes up from another ridiculous dream

Re:Excellent!

[xoran99]

Actually, carrying a small Tux doll takes care of both of those... Chicks dig stuffed animals...

Re:Excellent!

[Capt'n Hector]

Now I can fit my geekiness in my pants...
Perhaps you could show us some pointers? My geekiness always seems to come out at parties.

Re:Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but can you get XFree86 easily configured on these? Otherwise you be sayin' "wow don't this black and white console screen look dead sexy on my PDA!"

Re:Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but if the girls are swarming around you because you have a stuffed animal, it's not because they find you sexually attractive. It's because they think you're gay and therefore "safe".

Honestly, you'll never get any tail with that approach.

Re:Excellent!

[nofx_3]

The distro uses openzaurus, which has the opie windowing system. Opie was originaly forked off of Qtopia, an embedded qt qui and pim software that draws directly to the frambuffer, so no x is needed. X can be run the the devices, but the screen on some of the zaruii can be as small as 320x320 so x may not be the best option.

Re:Excellent!

[R.Caley]

Now I can fit my geekiness in my pants pocket and take it to parties and pick up girls

Is that a page fault in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

Re:Excellent!

[Your_Mom]

Just be thankful it isn't a core dump

Is that a...

[cujo_1111]

Is that a penguin in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Re:Is that a...

[chunkwhite86]

Is that a penguin in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Nope, just Some geek pr0n.

Here's a sample:

"Lay her vertically against one jaw and put your nail against the other jaw and slowly crank it down. Once the two get close, adjust the position and angle so that the penetration will occur near one edge of the target. Since this is her first time, you'll want to take it nice and slow. If you go too fast, you might just ram it all the way through, that could be ugly. I padded the vise to protect her front side."

Yeah, it IS what you think. ;-)

new place for distro wars

[contrasutra]

Just when I thought the embedded market was safe, we'll now have distro wars on a PDA!

Lycoris vs Gentoo for my palm.

Actually, no one really knows if Gentoo on your PDA works, as it hasn't finished compiling yet. It always gets about half way there (est. time: 6 weeks) and the pda starts to smoke.

Re:new place for distro wars

[tntguy]

And that's just the initscripts!

Re:new place for distro wars

[cujo_1111]

Could be a use for the IR port on your PDA, line up a couple of PDAs and set them against one another trying all sorts of automated hacking.

Or just use it as a TV remote :)

Re:new place for distro wars

[bluewee]

I know you were making a funny, but Could you compile a basic version on your home computer and then just transfer it across and then setup grub and the sort?

Re:new place for distro wars

[grimiore1]

because i know my desktop OS uses the same processor and the same glibc versions as my palm pilot.

Re:new place for distro wars

[Anonymous Coward]

because i know my desktop OS uses the same processor and the same glibc versions as my palm pilot.

...because I've never heard of cross-compiling.

Re:new place for distro wars

[gid13]

Looking at the site (http://www.opensistemas.com/Gentoo_for_Zaurus.715 .0.html#) shows the Zaurus doing the "emerge" part and the main PC doing the compiling.

Re:new place for distro wars

[grimiore1]

and we all know that gcc is very stable for obscure embedded processors.

Re:new place for distro wars

[Anonymous Coward]

and we all know that gcc is very stable for obscure embedded processors.

...and we all know that OPIE hasn't been compiled with gcc all this time anyway.

Tag! You're it!

Re:new place for distro wars

[chunkwhite86]

Actually, no one really knows if Gentoo on your PDA works, as it hasn't finished compiling yet. It always gets about half way there (est. time: 6 weeks) and the pda starts to smoke.

Mine finished! Wireless LAN works, and it's the most stable PDA platform I've eve

[NO CARRIER]

Re:new place for distro wars

[grimiore1]

and we know that arm-linux-gcc-3.2 doesn't mean it's gcc.

Re:new place for distro wars

[notsoclever]

I think we've lost track of who's being sarcastic and who's being ironic.

Also, ARM is hardly "obscure," considering it's what's used in practically every PDA these days.

Better than OpenZaurus?

[NoDoZ]

How does this compare to the OSes already available for the Zaurus?

Re:Better than OpenZaurus?

[PepsiProgrammer]

I'd try it on my zaurus, if I could find a place to download it. But unfortunately the link in that article is dead. and i can find no mention of the distro on the lycoris site. Anyone have a download mirror?

Re:Better than OpenZaurus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you don't, the cycle of intolerance will continue.

If tolerance isn't something you're willing to do, then you are a fool to think you can convince me to do it.

Re:Better than OpenZaurus?

[cujo_1111]

I would say it compares quite well. Still needs a bit of work making sure it is compatible to the platform but overall quite good. As always with anything new, give it some time to build some momentum and it will be all the better for it.

Re:Better than OpenZaurus?

[benow]

It looks quite similar to me. Eye candy is a bit different, but not much more than that. It looks to be basically the same functionally with a brand applied. The sync application is perhaps the biggest custom piece, tho i've no problem syncing data from my zaurus (calendar, mail and contacts) to evolution. Ssh, scp, http, for the rest. Don't get me wrong, the Z is _great_, but don't put it off to wait for this distribution, and if you are considering, consider the C7x0 series.

Andrew

Re:Better than OpenZaurus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said!

Wow

[NEOtaku17]

This will definitely have to make it into the Beaver benchmark round-up. Man I bet those Dell PowerEdge 2650s are shaking in their boots!

But still not ready for the desktop eh

[Agent_Number_4]

Truly cannot wait for this baby to come out. Just purchased an Ipaq 2215 and really want to see just how different this is when it finally comes out.

Re:But still not ready for the desktop eh

[agent dero]

I own the same iPaq, and i'm really excited about this; BUT.

Say the installation screws up, or I don't like it; how could I get Windows CE back on my iPaq? Any takers?

Re:But still not ready for the desktop eh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing if you do a hard reset (on the 5450 it's hold down the two bottom buttons and hold the reset button for 20 seconds) and then put it in the cradle you might have some luck. Beyond that I have no clue as I haven't tried to restore the things yet (just getting ready to buy one of these things to do some experimentation with).

Re:But still not ready for the desktop eh

[AresTheImpaler]

look at handhelds.org there is a way to back up your rom so that if you don't like linux on it you can bring pocket pc back. But I'm not sure, I have never done that...

Re:But still not ready for the desktop eh

[mypalmike]

There is a bootloader which can load either CE or Linux. The bootloader takes up a relatively small amount of flash, so once that's in place, you can reinstall CE or Linux as much as you want. It's not exactly a point-and click procedure, but it's not too hard.

Re:But still not ready for the desktop eh

[warkda rrior]

Of course, if the download of the bootloader to the PDA fails, then you are left with a completely dead PDA. You would have to send it to Compaq for fixing. It used to be that Compaq Research Labs would fix the "brick" (=dead PDAs) for free.

Re:But still not ready for the desktop eh

[McPierce]

Say the installation screws up, or I don't like it; how could I get Windows CE back on my iPaq? Any takers?

Install BootLoader first. Even if the Lycoris upgrade fails (I'm assuming it uses BootLoader; that's what I use to install Opie on my iPAQ) BootLoader will let you put a new image on top of it, including the original WinCE image you backed up (assuming you *did* back it up).

Palm OS's

[Rick and Roll]

Yeah this looks nice. But what I would really like is to have an Open Source Operating System on my cell phone. They already have 640x480 digital cameras on some sleek models. I would like to be able to take a picture with these and have it go into my Photo-Blog. This could be done by sending the image over e-mail (which might be the way I code it anyway) but I don't want to have to enter things in every time.

But putting this on an iPaq would be sweet. I dunno, though, if I shelled out money for a palmtop, I would probably get the Palm model with the expanding screen. That is nice for viewing pictures and stuff.

Re:Palm OS's

[notsoclever]

Sharp makes a CompactFlash camera attachment for the Zaurus. It's a bit pricey at something like $130 though.

Also, you can always use the Zaurus to view pictures taken on a digital camera. One time I was borrowing a friend's digital camera for a photo shoot, and rather than hold on to the camera I just used my Zaurus to copy the contents off the camera's CF card, and then when I got home used my CF WiFi card to transfer the images to my computer. Worked wonderfully.

Re:Palm OS's

[jsebrech]

Check out foneblog. I haven't tried it, since I don't have an mms or wap phone, but there are lots of phoneblogs out there, so clearly it's possible to get it to work.

Re:Palm OS's

[pivo]

Actually, I just got a Zaurus 5600. I got the camera too, for $15. Looks like they used to be in the $130 range, but no more.

Re:Palm OS's

[notsoclever]

Where did you find them for that cheap? The best I can find on Yahoo Shopping is $30, and most places are still asking $150-$200 for it.

Re:Palm OS's

[pivo]

I got it for $14,95 from Comp-u-plus (http://www.compuplus.com), I've even got my invoice right here. It looks like it might have been on sale, since now it's $28.95.

In fact, if you google, "sharp ceag06 digital camera zaurus" you'll see: ... VIEWSONIC. VISIONTEK. VISIONEER. WESTERN DIGITAL. SHARP CEAG06 DIGITAL CAMERA CARD
FOR ZAURUS SL5000 SERIES - CE-AG06 Price: $14.95; Item is brand new and in Stock! ...

But when you go to their site it's more. Sorry. At least it's not $130.

Re:Palm OS's

[notsoclever]

It was Comp-U-Plus which had the cheapest price on Yahoo Shopping. I've bought a lot of stuff from them in the past, but yeah, they seem to move their prices around totally at random. Maybe in a few more days it'll be back down to $15. :)

I'd take a look at it...

[TheMadPenguin]

If I didn't have my beloved Zaurus, I might try Lycoris... but only if you threatened me at gunpoint of course. Or maybe poked me with a sharp stick a few times :)

----
http://www.madpenguin.org

Re:I'd take a look at it...

[Grizzlysmit]

If I didn't have my beloved Zaurus, I might try Lycoris... but only if you threatened me at gunpoint of course. Or maybe poked me with a sharp stick a few times :)

Poke you with a sharp stick, ok if you'd really like, we wont even make any demands we'll do it for free.

So you want to make a Linux PDA?

[IceFox]

Having worked for Sharp and have stuff in Opie and delt with quite a lot of Linux in the PDA scene. I put together an article in my free time the last few years. Some ideas you may like, some you may disagree with. A few ideas you might not have known about, and many that you probably could list yourself. Without further delay here it is:

http://www.csh.rit.edu/~benjamin/articles/linux_pd a.php

-Benjamin Meyer

Re:So you want to make a Linux PDA?

[wed128]

Good page...I can see you've given this a lot of thought. I would love to take linux with me, that's for sure

Re:So you want to make a Linux PDA?

[reuben04]

I like the ideas... Funny BAC calculator is at the top of your list for applications...
I hope to see a good majority of your specs used in this new open source pda model.. I have used Pocket PC for a while, and found that I didn't like it because it wasn't flexible. I could never get it to do what I wanted it to do. I had to fight the software to make it usable, and a laptop was just easier.

Re:So you want to make a Linux PDA?

[Bodhammer]

Nice Article - seriously!

Too bad no one at Sharp ever read it...

Re:So you want to make a Linux PDA?

[ajagci]

Many of the things I agree with.

But I think it's a fundamental mistake to approach PDA development like desktop development (in fact, I think it's a mistake to approach desktop development like people do today, but desktop machines are powerful enough to get away with it).

For a usable PDA environment, you need efficiency, robustness, easy communications, and easy extensibility. A dynamic language that runs everything in a single address space can give you that. A collection of C/C++ behemoths linked against complex C/C++ GUI libraries cannot. The Newton got this right. Smalltalk got this right.

Re:So you want to make a Linux PDA?

[irix]

Too bad nobody at Sharp was listening about the sync portion at least. Syncing with Opie is possible but not great, but at least we are trying to improve it out in the open, rather than changing formats in a closed way like Sharp did.

If you look at the way that Opie and Multisync are headed I think that we will get there eventually on the sync front.

Lycoris vs Lindows?

[kevin_conaway]

On the lycoris website, it says

Buy Desktop/LX pre-loaded on PCs at WalMart.com! Check out the entire line of MicroTel Desktop/LX- Certified PCs ranging from $199 to $558.

I thought that was Lindows market. Has WalMart dumped Lindows or are they coexisting? If the latter, that will be extra confusing for Joe Sixpack buying Linux at WalMart

Re:Lycoris vs Lindows?

[LnxAddct]

Yes they coexist, along with SUSE and Linare. See for yourself. Check the left side column for SUSE and Linare.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Lycoris vs Lindows?

[Bill Kendrick]

that will be extra confusing for Joe Sixpack buying Linux at WalMart

Perhaps. But then again, they also sell countless brands of toothpaste, lots of different TVs, VCRs and DVD players, etc. Sometimes people are forced to pick/choose. It might end up being random... they might have done research beforehand... they might just ask the pimply-faced clerk "duh, what's gud for me two yoos?" :)

Better yet, why bother?

[paroneayea]

If they're expanding on projects like Opie and OpenZaurus, which already exist and would absolutely love contributors... why the heck fork? If there is a reason, I guess I just don't see it.

Re:Better yet, why bother?

[CliffH]

money

wise choice

[0x12d3]

They've made a great choice, the size and speed of Linux is definitely evident, as well as the time and money saved on liscensing and porting to new hardware as time marches on. Currently the DL-PPC will ship with 2.4.18, but I think others will agree that the added responsiveness of the 2.6's will really be appreciated in the PDA arena. Joseph "Redmond" Cheek, definitely did his homework here, this is a great match.

Re:wise choice

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got a palm put pocketPC back on my iPAQ because of the latency problems I was having with 2.4.x based familiar. In an embedded platform, you shouldn't have to look at an hourglass while the app starts.
Through the whole experiment (about a year), I did get to try out kitchensync, which is just a great little app.

31337 h4xxor

[LnxAddct]

Look at the third picture on the site.

" Owned by Joseph Cheek"

Damn not even on the market yet and already 0vvn3d. This Joseph Cheek guy is 1337.

-Steve

Re:31337 h4xxor

[_Sprocket_]

...makes you think twice about those "pre-owned" PDAs you can get on eBay.

cell phone Linux PDAs here we come.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear that an iPAQ with cell phone functionality
is coming soon. This is great timing.

Re:cell phone Linux PDAs here we come.

[CliffH]

They are here now if you go out and buy a GPRS sleeve. One of my clients uses his a good bit. It does the job but, honestly, a cellphone should stick to making calls and a PDA should stick to doing the other stuff.

What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[gotr00t]

One of the biggest reasons why I went with GNU/Linux with X and KDE is the fact that I can configure it to whatever I want it to look and feel. Many distros also seem to have this philosophy, and have created their own unique interfaces, using KDE as a starting point.

However, of all of these distros, Lycoris has tried to emulate WinXP for all their desktop platforms, and now, they are emulating Microsoft's PocketPC OS for their mobile platform, and by doing so, they have conceded that the XP interface is perfect, and something to copy, which it is definately not (just look at the number of people who have added a program that simulates the OS X dock onto their WinXP desktop) This is the reason I will probably never even consider using Lycoris: because the XP interface (IMO) is terrible, and I would definately not use it, or a rip of it, voluentarily.

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[beldraen]

It boils down to, "who do you think they are going for?" You? Nope. You're already copping an attitude of "why would you want it to look like XP?" Reality is that people want familiar and XP is familiar. Business wants to sell to profitable segements and people who cop an attitude and can install it themselves aren't profitable. Take Business 101 and Humility 101. Most people do not want to take the time to learn something new because most people do not have enough time in their lives to do the things that way to do, much less reinvent their way of working with a computer.

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[CoolMoDee]

What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

I can configure it to whatever I want it to look and feel.

So what you are saying is that people can set it to look and feel like whatever they want as long as its not XP? People may like the XP look and feel because it is familar to them.

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[be-fan]

Well, that's kind of the point of KDE being so flexible. So that people (like Lycoris) who want to customize it to be an easy transition from Windows can do so.

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[kfg]

No, they are conceding that the XP interface is marketable as a crossover product. This is an entirely different thing.

I wouldn't recommend Lycoris to anyone either, but that has to do with their business model catering to a perception of propriatariness of Open Source software, and it's no particular compliment to OSS that one of the reasons I find this inappropriate is the fact that the general low quality of much of what Lycoris "sells" is remarkably poor compared to their propriatary cousins. Particularly the games, which may well be of far more import to the Windows crossover customer than the average Linux geek.

This will reflect badly on OSS in general.

But again, none of that has anything to do with the interface.

KFG

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[metal_priest]

Lycoris used to be called Redmon Linux. I even planned to install it at some point because it looked like some ridiculous parody of windows. At least one of the main lycoris devs worked for microsoft, so they have been throughly brainwashed.

Anyways, ever since they renamed to Lycoris, I no longer wanna install the distro. It went from funny to sad. How can someone be so serious about looking like a cheap copy of xp?

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[nvrrobx]

*argh*

It's NOT that the XP interface is perfect. It's that it is well understood and used by people every day! If Linux looks completely foreign to your normal, average end user, you'll have a very hard time getting them to use it.

If you were to go to a car dealership and find a new car that had its speedometer upside down, steering wheel was a yoke (think helicopter), etc etc, would you be wary of it at first?

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[polyp2000]

If Linux looks completely foreign to your normal, average end user, you'll have a very hard time getting them to use it.

Someone finally said this ... I havent used a windows box for any great length of time for 3 or 4 years. I always find the windows gui to be unfamiliar and confusing. I dont really think that a well-configured gui (my preference is kde gnome still feels ropey to me), on Linux is every bit as good as a windows one, in some ways KDE is better (from a configuration standpoint).

I was using a win2k machine only yesterday, and was disturbed by the fact that IE crashed and bought the whole machine down needing a reboot... no chance of running a killall -9 IEXPLORE.EXE is there ?

nick

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there is. You just have to configure windows to run every explorer instance in its own memory space.

Re:What is with Lycoris trying to emulate XP?

[mrjohnson]

Except that, for most people, XP is not familiar. Most people have never run that version of windows.

Alas...

[MsGeek]

...Lycoris is still based on Caldera, the Anti-Linux. Granted, it's their own fork of Caldera, but it's tainted nevertheless. I used to really, really like Lycoris, but I can't recommend it even to n00bs because it's got the Darl whiff now.

I hope Joseph Cheek gets hip and moves the code base to a more appropriate one. Debian would be a good choice.

Re:Alas...

[kfg]

it's got the Darl whiff now.

No, it has the Ransom Love whiff. That alone may be an offensive smell to some, but to associate Lycoris with Darl McBride is an act of sympathetic magic.

Open Zaurus

[Lane.exe]

I'm still trying to get Open Zaurus to compile on my SL5600... it needs work before it's as good as the Sharp ROM that came with my Z.

Need?

[bluewee]

Do you really need Linux on a PDA? it seems kinda redundant. I do agree it is better to use opensource programs, because you know what is actually going on, but I would bet that the Prop. software that HP, palm, Sony created is just as good, or better(people's jobs depend on how good the software is).

Re:Need?

[TiggsPanther]

For most people, whatever ships with the hardware is probably fine. But it's nice to have an alternative possible for if you knwo what you're doing.

PalmOS has a few limitations. Still no proper filesystem, as far as I know, and no bundled decent WP package (unless things've moved on in the past couple years.
And Windows is, well, Windows. It does a good job, but like on a desktop sometimes you just want an alternative, y'know?

Plus there's the beauty of Open Source. If something goes wrong consistentaly, you can try having a look at the code and giving a shot at fixing it.
(Although, in my case, it'd be more "tweak the code, try to compile, and discover new ways to break it...")

Plus there is the simple fact that if you've got all of your main systems running Linux, having a Linux-based PDA means your own setup is more internally standardised.

Tiggs

Re:Need?

[beattie]

(people's jobs depend on how good the software is).

Come on... Windows is not open and look how crappy it is.

Re:Need?

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

My Linux based Zaurus has Apache/PHP running, along with a wired ethernet card attached to it. When I go to a client site to work on web server hardware upgrades, I configure my Zaurus with the same IP as the machine I'm working on and plug in. While the main server is offline, the Zaurus takes over with a pre-made "Server is being upgraded" message for all those who surf there.

Phone edition?

[marcushnk]

Anyone know if it will compatable with phone PDA's like the XDA2 ??

Re:Phone edition?

[Capt. Beyond]

If it runs linux, Opie can be 'ported' to it, easily. Opie already runs on a number of devices.

Are they planning on charging for this?

[jasonditz]

I might give it a shot, but I'd need a really compelling reason to actually shell out money for this. I hope they make it free for the first few versions at least, I'm pretty unkeen on this whole "paying for software" thing.

Re:Are they planning on charging for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you can forget the free part. They don't even distribute compilers with their distro, and if you want them, say to compile a piece of software or drivers that don't come with the distro, it's $10 extra. And don't get me started on their failure to distribute the source code last fall until they were pressured into it.

They have a community website, although it's not really run by the community anymore. Basically it's been taken over back in the Fall by their head of marketing and sales, a guy named Rus who also astro-turfs articles here at Slashdot about Lycoris under the name of "penguinrenegade" and speaks about them in the "3rd-person" instead of owning up to the fact he really is just posting an advertisement for the company he works for. If you post anything in the forums criticising the product, the post mysteriously disappears. The forums are basically just populated by newbies and a few people who have "drank the kool-aid". Most of the knowledgeable veterans have been driven off by the antics of the company. Shame really.

Re:Are they planning on charging for this?

[Richard Mills]

I can't agree more with the parent post. Lycoris came bundled with my $200 Wal-Mart box (great buy, by the way!). At first I was impressed with the desktop setup, but then I found that I couldn't do anything useful with Lycoris without paying them extra money. No compiler? According to their bozos on the community website, normal users "don't need a compiler". And don't even think that you can get by without one. It is impossible to find binary packages for it, so you can't install anything. That is, unless you want to pay them money to send you a CD of a bunch of programs that are freely available, open source stuff. (But which you can't download and install yourself because, well, there's no compilers!)

Luckily, with a Knoppix CD my machine quickly because a very nice Debian install!

Re:Are they planning on charging for this?

[jasonditz]

I too am using one of the $200 Walmart boxes, but mine came with Lindows. Sounds like kinda the same thing, but the Lindows people weren't clever enough to keep you from installing stuff on your own. Anyhow, I got tired of jumping through hoops and stuck SuSE on it. Still the best $200 I ever spent.

Re:Are they planning on charging for this?

[jasonditz]

Yikes.

So they combined the low, low cost of Windows with the user friendliness and acceptability of Linux, sounds like a winning combo. :)

They are screwed by the license

[Anonymous Coward]

By using the GPL version of Qtopia, they've now made it impossible for any company that might license this from them to include anything that is not GPL, as a matter of fact, it would be a violation of the GPL for a software company to target the device with non-GPL code. This isn't going to go anywhere or be licensed by anyone for the same reason that OpenZaurus and Opie weren't, the licensing problems.

Re:They are screwed by the license

[Capt. Beyond]

Yes, it would be a good idea for them to license Qt embedded, wouldn't it?

hehehehe familiar.. good one;)

[Anonymous Coward]

"it should look pretty familiar to Linux-on-PDA fans."

hehehehe. classic... for those of you not in the know
familiar.handhelds.org

In development...

[mirko]

Some inside info about Cacko Linux : We are about to port our environment to others PDA such as ARM based Palm..
So, if you think Qtopia is too slow or Zaurus/iPaq are too expensive... Wait a moment :)

Re:In development...

[Jaysyn]

Hi,

Any hope for my Revo Plus?

Thanks

Jaysyn

Re:In development...

[mirko]

Nope, sorry : not powerfull enough.

Re:In development...

[__aafutm5472]

It looks fantastic. I can't wait to try it on my iPaw 3630 (it will run on the 3630, right??)

So where is this company located again? Redmond?

[LittleBigScript]

linux version 2.4.18 initially, with updates planned soon....

OpenZaurus 3.3.5 is already based on the 2.4.18 kernel but it some major problems with recognizing compact flash cards inserted after boot-time. Now, the 2.6.1 kerenel ported to the Zaurus would impress me, byt Lycoris is more interested in forking and thus gaining market interest than contribution to an excellent, but understaffed (four volunteers!) openzaurus.

According to Cheek, DL-PPC adds customizations to the OpenZaurus, Opie, and other open source project code bases that improve usability....

Meaning that they use everyone else's code, but add a "feauture" to make the background changable. Unfortuanatly they didn't recieve the memo. This can already be done easily.

DL-PPC will include the Samba-based Lycoris "Network Browser,".It's Opie-based PIMs will support synchronization with Lycoris's Desktop operating systems...

So they are adding nothing that isn't already there, but featuring their Logo will give the Zaurus credibility? Samba has been ported, as has Apache.

DL-PPC will support a variety of text-input methods...

It does already! Ever seen a Zaurus?. It possesses a thumbboard and the Qtopia enviroment has a Jot-styled input screen and a virtual keyboard, and even more will be found in the Opie fork.

What is it that Lycroris is contributing back to Linux? I must have missed that. They seemed more keen on hyping the idea or porting linux to a linux platform.

So would the adjective be "Lycorish?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds delicious.

networking

[Anonymous Coward]

Networking tools available on windows pocket pc ed are still a long way to go from those on Linux.
For example it still lacks any kind of pppoe protocol support whatswhoever.

Lycoris - Industry Powerhouse?

[deminisma]

I'm uncertain about the logic of Lycoris branching out into Tablets and now PDAs. Especially when they have a Linux distribution that is looking *so* 2001 (gcc 2.95, KDE 2.22). Perhaps they should consider perfecting that one first - no Linux distribution is currently equivalent to Windows on the desktop for the average user. It is almost as if Lycoris have decided participating in the fledgling desktop Linux market isn't fringe enough and they need to venture in to even less chartered waters. I want to admire their bravery - but there is a thin line between being brave and being stupid.

Re:Lycoris - Industry Powerhouse?

[Bill Kendrick]

no Linux distribution is currently equivalent to Windows on the desktop for the average user

I don't mean to nitpick, but I'm putting a Linux box together for my dad. KDE 3, Konqueror, KMail, OpenOffice.org 1.1, and some board/chess/puzzle games and some other potentially useful/fun apps.

My dad is in his 60s and has been using Mac OS Classic on an ancient Performa 62xx for a number of years.

I definitely don't think of myself as an 'average' user, although, while I'm a fairly good programmer and have a general understanding of Linux and other OSes, and have a CS degree, I couldn't set up a network or put together a new PC out of separate components if you paid me.

My dad is probably not 'average', either, since all he really uses his PC for is e-mail and web browsing.

But, what I'm wondering is, what is an "average" computer user? Can you quantify that some how? If you do, is your statement about Linux more or less true?

(This goes back to my complaint that "noone uses Linux because Linux doesn't have the latest and greatest games"... I, for one, stick to PlayStation for my gaming experience, so I find it baffling that such a general statement gets made all over the place. Am I just so clueless to think that 'average' computer users don't all sit around playing the latest incarnation of Quake on their ?.?GHz PCs?)

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble...

Linux

[minus_273]

wonder what happens when you get a kernel oops on your PDA.. i guess on most pda's you can restore Win CE, anyone have an experince like that? im curious.
Now, more seriously, I doubt anyone would like to use linux on their PDA.. at least from the quality of the PIM apps i see on the desktop. The best and arguably the most popular linux PIM is evolution, i think the developers shoudl be targeting their apps to evolution (or maybe even using it on the PDA). In the end folks its all about the PIM it doesnt matter if you can run mplayer with aalib in a terminal on your PDA if you cant take down a meeting time or a note and sync it with your PC.

Re:Linux

[JabberWokky]

As for the kernel, you do the same thing as if WinCE crashes - hit the reset. Hit the hard reset and your system goes back to default. Windows is not some sort of magic system; Linux on these systems works pretty much the same way.

I doubt anyone would like to use linux on their PDA.. at least from the quality of the PIM apps i see on the desktop.

I installed Linux to upgrade the PIM apps from the very limited ones on my iPaq. Opie provides a much nicer environment for standard ToDo, Calendar, Contacts and Notes. WinCE provides nicer voice recording and some interesting input methods. I'd rather have the better apps that I'll use regularly. DateBk5 on my Palm III still blows them out of the water... but I can emulate Palm on Linux.

The nicest thing is that I can use PyQt on it. I can create a form with QtDesigner, do the typical GUI dev cycle of clicking on the widgets and writing Python code for what it should do when it is clicked, scrolled, loaded, etc. The whole thing is converted into two .py files (one for the UI, one for the main code), and I can copy it over to my iPaq... really fast and easy custom app creation. Custom databases, little useful apps... the kind of uses that make PDAs really shine.

if you cant take down a meeting time or a note and sync it with your PC.

Between DrawPad and Kate, I can take notes much easier than on any PDA. I use Palm Grafitti for input when doing lots of text, or DrawPad to made quick scribbles. As for meeting times, you hit the Calendar button, pick the date and go... the same as every other PDA. Syncing is quick, easy and works fine.

I use unison to sync, but that's because my entire home LAN uses unison to backup all systems to a file server. Everything that appears on the network (and is configured as one of "my" systems) gets automatically synced if it hasn't in the past 24 hours. With my iPaq, that's right after it hits the cradle and is automatically assigned an IP address.

That's a bit more difficult to set up than the default sync (which has a nice GUI interface on the PDA), but I mention it because that's the kind of thing that admins in large office networks would give their eyeteeth to be able to do. As soon as an employee's PDA goes in a cradle, it is backed up to the server... the entire thing. If they run over it with their car, they simply go to the Help Desk, fill out a loss form, and get a new PDA... configured precisely as their old one was, every app, every note, every setting, identical.

--
Evan

Cool

[ndogg]

Lycoris has been doing a lot of interesting things lately, from putting their OS on tablets, to this. Sounds like they have a lot of fun with all this Linux stuff. I guess that goes to show the power of openness, huh?

This inspired me to do Opie on iPaq yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

This Lycoris announcement looked cool so I went out and looked around for similar solutions.

I ended up putting Familiar Linux and the Opie environment on my iPaq 3850 ( I backed up the wince ROM just in case I want to go back ) It looks exactly like the screenshots for Lycoris and I got it for free.

Not only that but I can run almost all the Zaurus software out there and there's plenty (see zaurus software index website and others...) I can get a shell on my iPaq, use the Internet over ppp through my desktop via the iPaq cradle (I don't have any fancy networking h/w for my iPaq) ssh in, use my Compaq microkeyboard, rotate the screen, get a better and crisper display of text, have a media player that supports more formats, use my SD cards (3800 series only) scp files over with no stupid Activesync installation and all that crap, install and remove software with ipkg, update the whole system (which is debian-like) with ipkg update; ipkg upgrade, have a konqueror web browser with multiple magnifications that actually work and look good... etc.

I think Linux unleashes a lot more of the power of my 206mhz iPaq than PPC Windows ever did.

Now if only Opie had A DECENT WORDPROCESSOR THAT WORKED!!!!!!! Someone, please! Something that would read/write Openoffice files would be amazing.

Re:This inspired me to do Opie on iPaq yesterday

[JCholewa]

> Now if only Opie had A DECENT WORDPROCESSOR THAT WORKED!!!!!!! Someone, please! Something that
> would read/write Openoffice files would be amazing.

Hancom Office is pretty good. It's only free with the Zaurus, though. Otherwise, you might have to give up some of those little green pieces of paper that nobody has anymore.

Hmm. It doesn't support OOo, though.

--
-JC
coder
http://www.jc-news.com/parse.cgi?coding/main

Re:This inspired me to do Opie on iPaq yesterday

[fiftyfly]

Well.... depending on what you mean by 'edit' I suppose you could gunzip the file & use on the many xml packages to modify the textual content of the file. Personally, while I love my Zaurus 5500, I don't really find it a good platform for document layout. Text is good, though, and html in a pinch handles the layout challenges I can be bothered with 'on the go'.

Reboot

[gd2shoe]

I don't know enough about imbedded systems to know exactly what's going on in there, but the Cassiopeia (pocket pc 2000) that my brother gave me for Christmas froze on me twice. After pokeing the "reset" button on the back it "rebooted" or something equivalent. All my files in RAM were still there, but my programs were shut down. If this is the hardware below the kernal, I don't think there's much of a problem.

Could be a good thing

[tsackett]

Lycoris Pocket PC (or whatever they end up calling it after the dust settles) could be a good alternative to the standard Zaurus ROM from Sharp.

If Lycoris can put together a system that looks good, runs on all of the different Zaurus models (OpenZaurus is not yet usable on the Zaurus 5600), and has a decent Personal Information Manager that syncs seamlessly with a decent PIM on the Linux desktop machine, that would be a good thing.

I picked up a Zaurus 5600 from Amazon a couple weeks ago, hoping that the wide variety of open source and free software projects for it would allow me to put together exactly the kind of PDA I wanted. However, it turns out that a lot of these projects are in, at best, beta phase. Or they don't really run on the 5600. Or they don't work with each other. You usually don't find out about any of these problems until you spend a few hours trying to get something to work. It doesn't make sense to complain about free software created by a community of volunteers, but it's been a frustrating experience.

Re:Could be a good thing

[Capt. Beyond]

Up till now, no Opie/Oz dev has had a Zaurus 5600. I happen to have one on my desk, so oz on 5600 should be working better shortly, as there are only a couple issues that really need work.

Cool concept

[TurnerK12]

This is good news. Now I can take my OS with me everywhere I go.
---
http://conradsheldon.web1000.com
The story of an Internet hoax, and the game it inspired.

Re:So where is this company located again? Redmond

[h0tblack]

I think one of the main reasons that people are having to stick with the 2.4.6 and 2.4.18 kernels is because of the binary-only SD driver from Sharp.

iSync'ability ?

[mirko]

Do this OS support SyncML (in order to be able to iSync it with OSX) ?
I think this could be THE reason I'd buy it.

OT: Sig

[Jaysyn]

fundametalist?

Jaysyn

Why Linux?

[R.Caley]

Maybe I'm missing something, but ISTM that unixoid OSs were not designed for this kind of role. Eg power management is just an afterthough on such systems, and size has never been a high priority.

Same can be said for windoze too of course.

What's the battery life like on one of these things? Psions go for 10s of hours (and run off normal batteries, which is a huge advantage).

Actually, of all the small computers which have come and gone, the only one which really made me go `I want one' was the (now deceased) rex. When my Psion 5 started looking it's age I was tempted to get a very small laptop and a rex. The buggers had stopped making them.

Re:Why Linux?

[BlortHorc]

Maybe I'm missing something, but ISTM that unixoid OSs were not designed for this kind of role. Eg power management is just an afterthough on such systems, and size has never been a high priority.


Minor quibble, but given UNIX was first developed on computers with a mighty 128KB of RAM, I think you may be slightly confused regarding the design priorities of "unixoid OSs".

I do know the first system I ran linux on was a 486/33SX (feel that emulated FPU goodness) with 4MB, and I suspect that in terms of the "four yorkshiremen" scale, that qualifies as somewhat more piss than whatever your generic ARM powered PDA does.

Hell, in those days I had to calculate my XF86Config ModeLines by hand to get something my PissWeak(Tm) PVGA card could grok, and even then, I'd only drag it out in case of Direst Emergency (if you've ever used X on an old system like that with drives that whistled as they worked, you'll know what I mean).

You young whippersnappers these days, I tell ya, it's PDA this, slow as dog shit that, *grumble*, onion in my belt, usw.

Re:Why Linux?

[R.Caley]

Minor quibble, but given UNIX was first developed on computers with a mighty 128KB of RAM, I think you may be slightly confused regarding the design priorities of "unixoid OSs".

Yes, but a PDP with a stonkinging big power supply gives a massively different fundamental design than something which has to deal with small batteries which will always go zonk! at the most inconvinient time possible.

As for size, yes early unixes were designed small, but there was a fundamental switch when they hit virtual memory and expected space and processing power started growing faster than anyone could think what to do with it. From that point, things like orthogonality have been much more valued than trimming a few killobytes from some module. The kernel on this machine is nearly 3GB, not counting loadable modules.

I do know the first system I ran linux on was a 486/33SX (feel that emulated FPU goodness) with 4MB

I've never run linux on anything, but back when I was running FBSD on a DX2/50 which just about managed to get X up if I was patient, my psion 3a was running (subjectively) faster with a nice integrated desktop, a pre-emtive multi-tasking OS giving a 30 hour expected battery life. Oh, and it ran for years without a restart.

386 and 486

[macemoneta]

I wish someone would package this environment for old 386 and 486 systems.

Re:386 and 486

[gozar]

And today me without mod points.... Anyway, this is an excellent suggestion!

A PDA version on a 486 or old pentium would rock as an Internet appliance for relatives.

Re:386 and 486

[toganet]

Seriously, I would love this, too. I may be ignorant, but what would be the barrier to this?

Specifically, what does the Opie environment do on the Zaurus (fb-wise) that couldn't be easily ported to a PC?

Re:386 and 486

[josath]

The only problem is, 486's max out at what, 66Mhz? While my Zaurus 5500 is 200Mhz, and the 5600 is 400Mhz. Also, the PDA's resolution is generally 320x240, which is way too low for a desktop monitor, but I believe some PDA's run at 640x480, which would be acceptable for old machines.

Add a decent IMAP client!

[brunes69]

Having a Zaurus for some time now, all I can say is this is great.. but please.... add a decent IMAP client ot OPIE. The only one available really blows, is incredibly show, does not support any kind of encryption or secure authentication...

Re:Add a decent IMAP client!

[bsantos]

You can use stunnel to make the encrypted tunnel to your imap server, you connect to stunnel on a local port and it tunnels it to the IMAPS port on your server. You can use this with inetd. :)

It is not the best solution, I agree with the need for a good IMAP client, but it is a temporary workaround.

Have a nice day! :)

Linux has been available for PDAs for years

[tmbg37]

I don't see why everyone is so excited about this Lycoris Linux distribution. I mean, Linux has been avaiable for iPaqs and Zauruses for years. The Familiar Linux Distribution for iPaqs is in version 0.7.2, and is in my opinion very stable already. And for Zauruses, not only does it run Linux out of the box, but the OpenZaurus project has provided an alternative for users. Both of these projects already have Opie, a Qtopia look-a-like as an option for desktop environments, but you can also use GPE as well.

To Zaurus or not to Zaurus?

[polyp2000]

The Zaurus appeals to me mainly because i'm a Linux freak, but the ability to be able to compile your own stuff (or other open source stuff) easily for your handheld is also a huge bonus. I also like the micro keyboard feature.
I also like the clamshell version, which sports an incredibly high resolution display for such a small unit.

My question is thus... With these new Linux handheld distributions, is there a case for getting an ipaq or other compatible pda?

What do people think? Get an Zaurus or swallow my pride and get an ipaq and a distro? which is cheaper ? which is better?

nick ...

Re:To Zaurus or not to Zaurus?

[tsackett]

The Zauruses (Zauri?) are very big compared to other PDAs. I have a 5600, and it makes my old Handspring Visor Deluxe look svelt. The 5500 is a bit thinner (because it uses a smaller battery), but it is just as tall.

I think the main advantage of the Zaurus is that you get some more choices about the software you run. I also have a Dell Axim Pocket PC, but I'm annoyed that most of the additional software made for it, even by hobbyists, is not free. I'm not against people making money from their work, but you never really know if a piece of shareware is going to work the way you hope.

Right now, I'm considering getting rid of my Zaurus and going back to the Axim. This is because it will sync to the CorporateTime scheduling system my company uses, and because Microsoft Pocket Streets, a road map application, is the most mind-bogglingly useful thing to have on a PDA. I'm not a Microsoft fan, but Pocket Streets rocks.

My girlfriend

[ballpoint]

runs Clytoris Linux on her embedded device.

If it works for the ipaq 2215, I will buy it!

[dremspider]

It is worth at least 30 bucks to me, to get off this "beta" windows ce, oh wait it isn't a beta. I owned a sharp Zaurus, and the thing had poor battery life and was large, never had problems with its stability though, I got an ipaq. Great battery life, beautiful screen, extremely small. Crashes constantly. Please let me have the best of both worlds lycoris!

Before you even get to the interface...

[IANAAC]

look at what they're naming it:

Pocket PC.

You'd think they'd run into problems with that.
And why would you want your market to be confused by the name (which is what would happen)?

It's the "PDA" thing

[hey!]

Who needs linux on a "PDA" -- basically a toy for keeping your address, phone book and to do list?

Nobody.

Who needs Linux on a mobile computing platform?

Me.

I develop mobile field inspection software for public and and environmental monitoring. When I started in this, people were either buying ruggedized computers or they were creating custom hardware solutions. PDAs where a godsend. The engineering you get for a few hundred dollars is terrific, because its cost is amortized over millions of gadget hounds.

However, my team is hobbled by its choices of development platforms. I can choose between slow and incompatible J2ME implementations that are pricey to deploy in large numbers. I can use Microsoft's tools, which aren't bad for the kind of diddly squat applications corporate VB grinds play with, but aren't really up to what we want to do.

I'd give my eye teeth for WxPython, or being able to use use J2EE and strip out the libraries I don't use.

Zaurus Flashin' Blues

[nontrivial]

Before you go flashing your PDA, please remember that it may not be as safe as you might be led to believe. I went from the stock Sharp Zaurus SL-C750 ROM to Cacko Linux and now I'm stuck. I can't install any other ROM. I'm sure there is a way but the doucumention is nonexistant, and even though I'm sure the Cacko folks are good people I've gotten no useful support from them. So now I'm locked in as a Cacko beta tester whether I like it or not and I am pretty much on my own getting it useful again. The only saving grace is that Cacko does seem to be a nice distro as long as you know Linux pretty well.

James

Re:Zaurus Flashin' Blues

[bsantos]

Have a look @ www.zaurususergroup.com, I'm sure someone will help you, and don't forget to search the forums before making repeated questions. ;o) Good luck!

Re:So where is this company located again? Redmond

[treke]

Used to be the case, but not really any more. The handhelds.org CVS has the source for an open source SD driver that is modular enough to support different devices. OpenZaurus's kernel guy has most of the info he thinks he needs to do a new SD driver, but what is really lacking is the time to do the ports to 2.6 for the different devices.

He has started working on it, and you actually can the C7x0 devices to "boot" 2.6.somethingorother on a serial console, but the flash and fb drivers still haven't been ported yet.

Re:So where is this company located again? Redmond

[h0tblack]

Aha, thanks for the info, I'll have to check it out (no pun intended).

Re:So where is this company located again? Redmond

[irix]

Indeed.

It's Opie-based PIMs will support synchronization with Lycoris's Desktop operating systems...

Some of us have been working on that [1] [2] for a while. I'm hoping they plan on using that and contributng back.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt - nothing wrong with providing "customizations" on top of Opie, but they need to provide code back. I haven't seen anything yet to say whether this will occur or not.

Re:Need Hancom Office?

[Anonymous Coward]

I found that if you go to the Hancom site and find yourself a Zaurus SL5000D serial number, (couple google searches will do), and they will let you download Hancom office, and it works on familiar :-)

Oh, wow

[notsoclever]

I'll have to pick one up. Thanks for the heads up. :)

What about Linux for Palm-based handhelds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to have a Linux-based handheld (well, I did have one, the SL-5000D, but it was junk). I currently own a Clie UX-50. That hardware should easily handle a PDA Linux distro. Has anyone ported such a thing to the new Clies? I have yet to find anything.

Which PDAS will be supported?

[wolf_m16]

Which PDAS will be supported? wince sucks, and my h1910 was a terrible dissapointment, (I went back to my old palm) can't wait for a version of linux to come out for it.

240x320, actually

[notsoclever]

All of the Zauruses have a 240x320 screen except for the clamshell ones which are 640x480.

I wonder how much Lycoris has improved OpenZaurus. I ran it for a while on my SL-5500 but a lot of stuff was broken and frungy. Finally when it hosed itself during a self-upgrade I decided to switch back to the official Sharp ROMs and it's working much better now. Not that I use it for much besides a little palmtop web terminal (mostly for reading in bed and for quick WiFi access when I'm out and about) since there's still no iSync support. :/