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Dell Axim X50 Running Linux
Venture37 writes "the guys at handhelds.org have managed to boot the linux kernel on a Dell Axim X50 handheld, the project is at alpha stages, you can grab a copy of the files from
handhelds.org or fisherss.com."
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IBM's Linux Watch enhanced shell with Bluetooth
You can also install it on a dead badger.
TBH though, I don't see the hype. So, it runs Linux, and does absolutely nothing useful. Big freaking deal. Lots of geek points, yes, but minus several million engineer points in the practicality department?
After spending over a year both contributing and waiting for the linux port to become useable on my ipaq 2215, I decided to just buy a pda that supported linux natively. I commend these guys for their hard efforts, but really I wanted to be able to program _my stuff_ on it, not spend all my time programming to get a not-so-stable linux port that is only useable 30 seconds to a minute at a time.
perhaps that axim people will have better luck, i surely hope so. But really if this is what you are looking for you should consider buying one that supports linux natively. Not only will it save you some time but you also get to put your money where your mouth is and support companies that support you.
"TBH though, I don't see the hype. So, it runs Linux, and does absolutely nothing useful. Big freaking deal. Lots of geek points, yes, but minus several million engineer points in the practicality department?"
Gotta say I concurr. Supposing I did buy an Axim and put Linux on it, what useful stuff could I do with it that I couldn't before? This is a serious question. These days, you can almost affordably buy one of these with a 480 by 640 display, 3d accellerator, and equip it with a 4 gig micro drive. Any real advantage to putting Linux on it?
"Derp de derp."
You want practical? It's a blue-sky open source development project, you nitwit. The potential applications are legion. But let me give you a run-down of several of the uses to which I've put my own HP Ipaq (running Linux from handhelds.org!):
1) Mobile FULL-FEATURED WiFi scanner and auditing kit. Run Kismet, Airsnort, and a lot of other Linux-only tools (any Windows equivalents cost $$$ and have stripped-down handheld versions) for serious portable work. 100x easier than carting a laptop around. Break WEP keys, perform breakin demos, and hunt down rogue APs with a pocket-sized monster.
2) During the NYC blackout, my ISP was still up and laptops had juice, but my routers ran down the UPS batteries in about 30 minutes. Jury-rigging a car battery, some DC-DC conversion stuff, and an Ipaq w/ PCMCIA sleeve holding 2x PCMCIA network adapters = an instant router that stayed up, routing 1.5 Mbps DSL to five users, for 12 hours. Do you know how much a 12-hour UPS costs??
3) Since the Ipaq (like the Axim) has a microphone and WiFi, it makes a killer wireless microphone. Turn on a recording app, stream the data via wireless to a laptop somewhere nearby, and you've got at least an hour of recording time on batteries alone. Makes an excellent conference-room bug, for checking up on meetings that you can't attend or negotiations that you shouldn't know about--and you record all day if you plug your Ipaq in to charge and then "forget" about it.
4) Portable streaming MP3 player. I've got kerberos-protected NFS shares full of music, and I can stream music out of those shares from anywhere I can reach my APs.
The point is that the sky's the limit with Linux--whatever you can think up, within the limits of RAM and battery life (which are pretty substantial!) is yours to do.
I enjoy tinkering with my PC OS but when it comes to my PDA it has to just work and it is for getting serious work done quickly. It is the device I turn to when all else fails to get the job done.
There are dozens of handheld devices with Linux pre-installed and supported (often in innovative form factors and applications). There is nothing to tinker: they turn on and are rock solid. They also have lots of software available for them.
Handhelds.org is an effort to bring Linux to unsupported devices, in addition to the supported devices. Why do people do that? Because they can and because they like to have an even broader range of hardware available to them. Generally, installing Linux on unsupported devices involves some effort, but in my experience, the end result is as solid as it is on supported devices.
This is exactly why some people prefer Linux on their PDA: because the vendor does not want to release Windows Mobile updates for that particular model.
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Come on, half the world's inventions would have been absent if geeks hadn't played about with new toys/ideas. There may not be any practical uses of it yet, but they may just come about later. Remember that if linux was just restricted to the platform it was originally designed for, there would be no linux for the PowerPC, or for the hundreds of odd handhld devices, or for xyz ... zzz.