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Linux Finds Its Way to More Handheld Devices
LXrider writes "The coolest new handheld to pick Linux as its OS is the Pepper Pad. This device was one of the most exciting products to be found at this year's otherwise lackluster C3 Expo in NYC. The Pepper Pad runs MontaVista Linux on a Intel XScale PXA270 (624 MHz) processor and it used for viewing multimedia, surfing the net, and controlling your home's electronics."
does it run Windows?
Any chance this would run other distributions like Debian, or maybe even a *BSD like NetBSD (I do know that OpenBSD runs on the PalmOne Treo 600)? I looked at the product section of MontaVista Software and it seems to be a commercial distribution with no "community edition." The only thing close to free as in beer is the free preview kit I wonder if it would be possible to apply their source packages to come up with a free (as in beer as well as speech) distribution, like CentOS did with RedHat Enterprise Linux. Does this already exist? I realize distribution maintainers need to eat, but I think the pricing model of Xandros would be better, if not a distribution like Debian or Slackware. OTOH, I see some Debian packages for cell phones here., and there is a page for *BSD on mobile devices (cell phones, PDA, laptops) here.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
This is a really neat product, especially the instant-on, waterproof characteristics, and the 20GB HD. But at $700, I couldn't help wonder where the market niche was supposed to be? It's significantly more than a PDA, yet it doesn't look to price-compete against low-end notebooks (perhaps it does?). It's definitely way cheaper than tablets, but then again tablets have a lot more input features. So I'm not sure where it's supposed to compete in the market. Am I supposed to buy it instead of my PDA? Or my notebook?
Things NOT to look for in your staff
Oh yes, this marvel of engineering can be yours, for the low, low, price of $849.99.
I like the packaging, and the use of open source. But for that price, I think I'll pass.
Doubtful, this is an embedded system, how many people are itching for a desktop version of PalmOS or Symbian just because they like it on their PDA or phone?
Also, couldn't the parent post be posted in response to almost every story on slashdot ever?
...but the video on the site requires Windows Media Player 9.
On a device like a handheld or even with a media PC or something? The underlying OS should be transparant to the user.
Or does the keyboard seem nonsensically small?
I don't get the point of taking the time to integrate a keyboard into a device like that and splitting it into a thumb-typer arrangement with itty-bitty buttons (the thumb is not the most agile or delicate of bodyparts).
Have you seen some of the features? A substandard MP3 playing jukebox, the obligatory notepad etc. Can you install linux app packages? Is there access to a shell? It doesn't seem so.
You'd have to gut it to install a linux OS that would be recognizable or put up with their own OS which doesn't exactly excite.
I think the idea is essentially good but it lacks some pretty essential goods:
1. 2.4 kernel? C'mon! 2.6 is out... we like new crap.
2. 800x600? Okay, it's good for a lot of people out there -- just not me. For something that small, I would want at least 1024x768, but a wide aspect display would be really nice too... if it had...
3. DVD playback. This device really needs DVD playback and even video out to be really cool. It needs to be that headrest DVD player *and* be a computer too.
4. 802.11g
5. USB 2.0
6. IEEE1394 (iLink, Firewire, whatever)
7. Bluetooth
A cheap laptop beats this thing all over the place except for being aimed at the consumer rather than the hacker. It would be REALLY nice if this thing could connect with a cell phone to exchange data (pictures, address book, etc) and gate itself to the internet. USB 2.0 and/or Firewire and/or Bluetooth would be among the best means by which a lot of this could happen.
For this configuration of hardware, I think they could have saved a lot of money and development time by adopting a version of Knoppix for this thing. Pull out the packages you don't want, add a few that work for this hardware and lock down the UI so that people don't need to know it's Linux and you're good to go.
An added advantage to having a DVD reader installed on this thing would be easy user updates/reloads -- it's a no brainer to insert a "factory reload" media, reboot and hold down some magical key combination eh?
Anyway... a laptop beats this and these days the price is probably better too.
Not to sound like a Zaurus fanboy, but I love the form factor of it. The Pepper Pad seems a tad too big to be able to throw in your jacket pocket and go.
That smells like a new /. meme rising
...so Slashdot is printing thinly-veiled press releases.
Isn't there a "Wor of teh World Sucks" movie review in the queue?
I looked at the Pepper Pad. Ho-hum. It's got a 20-gig harddrive, it has yesterday's WiFi (b not g) and USB (1.0 not 2.0), a Blackberry keyboard, and it runs some oddball version of Linux.
For a $200 more, you can get a G4 iBook.
My father is a blogger.
Yeah, especially since there are a few laptops that are even lighter than this thing that you could possibly get for $800 (Sharp Actius MM-10, maybe?).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I believe it was a joke, because that's the question appended to nearly every /. article mentioning Linux, Mac, FOSS, etc.
No, the coolest new Linux device is the Nokia 770.
7 70
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,1522,,00.html?orig=/
"Yes, but, does it run Linux?"
1998 called, the copyright on this joke hasn't expired yet.
"Derp de derp."
and more attention to the little mom'n'pop hardware that is great. It will not be great for mainstreem hardware to be the sole offer, because it often undersells smaller competitors to the point of harming customers and the future innovations. It's the little man, down to the worker at his desk, that is relied for perfecting his stroke on the picture. All the painters of highest regard were somewhat sloppy in their day, and yet their "art" has endured to show forth a different interpretation of things that it continues in its own merit onto others. Somtimes you need to invest in bad hardware to allow a small company exist long enough to produce its most inspired product. I am not saying its a bad product or componay, although market reach implies such, yet consider SoftField Tech and its Linux-only PDAs. Its next release of PDAs will be verry good, but that will never happen unless people buy the already existing outdated hardware.
I am waiting for VA Software to re-enter the hardware market; and that I will to, every day. Slashdot is a great post of VA. It needs to be said, the VA hardware was a great enterprise that I am said to see fade away just because people were finding it difficult as a VAR. Somtimes, image is the only solution you can offer on a product that passes your way and that is the secret of QA.
I am the nightmare of nightmares.
Not only does it have a terrible name, but I saw the instruction booklet for the Pepper Pad, and it looked completely useless. I don't quite understand who would want a not-quite-laptop sized, but not-quite-palmtop sized device that doesn't really do much else except play media. When my boss asked the salesgoon what it does, she said "it plays movies...and acts as a tv remote!" ... when he asked why someone would want it, the salesgoon said "it plays movies...and acts as a tv remote!" From what I saw, it looks just about as usefull as a speak n' spell.
Although p1120 is two years old technology, it is much better:
1) slightly lighter (2.2 pounds).
2) bigger screen (8.9 inch compared to 8.4).
3) higher resolution (1024x600 compared to 800x600)-Much better for watching 16:9 movies.
4) regular clamshell laptop design with a regular keyboard.
5) slightly better cpu, i386 architecture (transmeta crusoe 800 MHZ).
6) regular 2.5 inch hard disk. It comes with a 30 GB drive which can be replaced with a 100GB drive. Drive upgrade is very easy, only two screws.
7)Better upgradability, it has a regular cardbus slot+a mini PCI slot. Ih comes with a mini card which is a wireless b/modem combo -it can be easily replaced with a g wireless card.
8) Standard i386 architecture makes it possible to run multiple operating systems. On my current system I run
1)Suse Linux 9.3-slower than Suse 9.0, faster than Solaris 10.
2)Suse Linux 9.0-this is the fastest OS for the laptop.
3)BeOS 5.03- faster than Suse 9.3 Solaris and Windows.
4) Solaris 10 (only at 800x600 resolution)- a bit slow. To install solaris I had to put the dive on another machine; once installed solaris runs fine on p1120.
5) Win 2k (it came with winxp home)
All on a 100 gb drive.
Disadvantage : more expensive, $1199 from Fujitsu USA. Last week it was on sale at NEWEGG for $1050. The difference in features is worth the money.
Other alternatives: Sharp mm20 ($1200-1300), it is even lighter, 1.9 pounds. It has a regular 10.4 screen but has a 1.8 inch drive (20 GB) There are 1.8 inch drives up to 60GB (9.5 mm) but mm20 can only take a 7 mm drive. Right now it can be upgraded only to 30GB. It has a better CPU, efficeon 1GHZ, and 512 MB RAM. Compared to p1120 it has a big disadvantage, it is very fragile. Fujitsu p1120 is sturdy, you can drop it in a bag or purse without any problems.
Both size and weight are too big for a handheld. It is closer to a subnotebook (Sharp Mebius Muramasa, mm20, Toshiba Libretto, Fujitsu p1120), but lacks the standard features of a subnotebook (i386 compatibility, pc card slots, regular keyboard). Most subnotebooks are smaller and lighter and have many additional features. I think nobody will buy it.
We went with MontaVista because, at the time, it was the best pre-compiled solution with RPM support that ran mostly out of the box. We're exploring other options and have used various cross-compilers to build binaries for the Pepper Pad. In theory, if another distribution will build, it will run. :)
We're not officially working on any other distributions at the moment but we're exploring our options in our (lack of) spare time.
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad
This is the latest in a long line of "Beowulf cluster of Natalie Portman-style grits, you insensitive clod" taglines.
I've seen it in a lot of articles lately. So why am I not surprised it was modded interesting? Obviously the bots have taken over. Moderation must be done via genetically-engineered parakeet.
I've ran into something similar before.
A system which was built around Linux but you can't see the word "Linux" being mentioned.
And when it comes to synchronizing - it only uses Microsoft Windows - thus even implying the system was built around the same.
"Linux" is becoming a taboo word - since they believe it implies user-unfriendliness and inflexibility.
The companies not only take but give nothing back, they feel "ashamed" of mentioning the free OS.
I found the keyword "Linux" on a second page "Technical Specifications"
Probably not, because this device isn't about the operating system. Other than the mention of Mozilla, where do you see an indication that this is NOT Windows?
Yeah, it's Linux. The target user doesn't give a damn. He or she just wants instant-on web and no-brainer wireless. And MP3s that don't require one to dig for some grey file to make it work.
And the marketing doesn't even mention Gnome, KDE, RPM, or Debian. Heresy!
Come to think of it, with all the user focus, I'd better re-read the article and make sure it's not a Mac ...
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
i assume DS-Linux and PSP linux were not present?
i didn't read it, so sue me.
I don't understand this part of copyright law, but it seems that Apple wouldn't have much leverage on this, since there's been a *nix 'mail' program for, oh, decades.
Fer christ's sake, I'm a linux fanboy, but if we were to give an article to every new product that had embedded windows in it ... or even embedded linux in it, we wouldn't have room for the Dupes! This isn't interesting. not even mildly. It's an example of a doomed product that uses linux. With misleading editorializing: "More handheld devices" implies a crop of new linux handhelds (which this is a bit bigger then anyways), but we get ... 1. That may or may not be linux compatible (probably can't sync with linux), and which requires WMV 9 to watch the preview of.
I believe you are absolutely right. I took a peek at Apple's Trademarks, and 'Mail' is absent from the list.
It would have been appropriate for me to have checked the list before posting nonsense.
Sig Sig Sputnik
This is NOT meant to be flame bait!
But this product, plain and simple, is UGLY UGLY UGLY.
It's my biggest problem with the Linux community. You need to take some lessons from Steve Jobs and the Apple community. Virtually everything I've seen in the Linux world is UGLY UGLY UGLY. OK for tech geeks, but not for nobody else.
If you really want to be mainstream, you need to change your ugly ways.
So everybody will probably think I'm just trying to get a rise out of you. Which will simply prove my point. If you don't see how ugly all of this stuff is, you don't understand why Linux -- an excellent concept -- hasn't taken off.
From their technology page: "The Pepper Platform includes Pepper's own patent-pending Application Framework for plug-in application programs..." Software patents are not cool.
is it me, or is that thing HUMONGOUS?!?!? i mean it's almost the size of a tablet. shouldn't it be categorized as a laptop/notebook and not a handheld?
HD Trailers
That SoftField PDA is actually pretty cool. For Linux users, I think it stacks up pretty well against a Zire 31 (or whatever it is), especially since it runs on AAAs and comes with a cradle. If I had known about it a year ago, I would probably have bought it instead of the Tungsten E I have now.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The softfield thingy looks pretty neat. Beats the hell out of getting a cheap Palm clone and running CLinux on it.
It looks like a clever little device. Small, decent screen. It might be useful for some quick WWW access from the couch type stuff.
But, for $850?!? Who the hell will analyze this against all the laptop options, and decide to pay more for this limited little device, rather than going with a full laptop?
Note the absurdity of the comment. The raising to meme status actually happens in the same article. What we've witnessed here, gentlemen, is the origin of a new meme. Quite an exiting time to be alive.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Moderation must be done via genetically-engineered parakeet.
Parakeet? I'm a galah, you insensitive clod!
This surely is an alternative at less than half the price of the pepper pad ($849.99)?
Mobilis products have already been covered in slashdot.
-- Prem
Aiming to tweet on a rice
I used to work at a company that ported WinCE and Linux to StrongARM devices. Our last project was a webpad. We went out of business shortly after that.
If I had any advice to offer it would be this. Drop your price. By a lot. It's been said in this thread before a few times but your price point is all wrong. For that cash you could get a laptop. That's what sunk us. People think that a few hundred bucks is a PDA, and anything over about $500 is a laptop. So if you fall in the laptop range, you have to provide laptop functionality.
Would you buy a laptop that ran at 624Mhz with no math coprocessor or video acceleration for $850?
Another point is the hardware. Don't know much about PXA270, but the PXA255 wasn't up to video. Getting video to run on it was my job, and best I could manage was 2 or 3 frames per second. We advertised that it could run video...and in a way it could. But it totally sucked and that put customers off. If it doesn't perform well you're better off simply not promoting it as a video player.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I have a Agenda VR3, which is what the device use to be called. It's a very solid and well designed PDA. has a nice big screen without a lot of wasted space on the edges of the screen by placing many of the buttons on the side. It has a nice crisp grayscale display with a backlight that is almost as good as a PalmIII's. It has a flash-based file system, which is especially nice because it has a pitiful battery life. A good rechargable battery would have really made a difference on this device. The AAAs simply don't cut it. I've used NiMH on my VR3 which does help somewhat on battery cost, but s single charge of NiMH's last even less than disposable cells.
The OS and apps are well written, who could have guessed you could cram a full X server in it and have it be as responsive. Running a real X server makes it super easy to port apps over to the VR3. Although the solitaire game and Agendaroids that comes with it are pretty good for stock games.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Basically a "Star Trek Tricorder" with a decent sized screen.
And, of course, using documented interfaces so it can be customized to whatever we want it to do.
Buying these precanned systems is often just about as useful as buying cured concrete - its already set in the way someone else molded it... not what I wanted it to be.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
The link to purchase it, for those so inclined, belongs to none other than the one company whose spirit embodies innovation, amazon.com. I'd avoid buying it for that reason alone, although I do think that $800 for something that offers about 1/10th of a desktop for the same price is a little, um, uneconomical.
Dude, you're really confused. BSD doesn't run on the Treo 600. A quick googling shows a number of pages detailing how to use a Treo with a BSD system, as in, hotsynching or connecting to the internet. Likewise, those Debian packages don't run ON cell phones, they're just FOR cell phones (as in data exchange and mobile internet). Same with that last page, for BSD and mobile devices. You actually think BSD runs a Sony Ericsson T39, do you? I'd sure like to see that.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
(I do know that OpenBSD runs on the PalmOne Treo 600)? That section of TuxMobile is a bit misleading. In this case, they mean that you could use the phone as a modem with a laptop running OpenBSD.
One way to pack more power into a handheld device without making it unwieldy is to separate the computing/storage part from the UI part. That is pack the CPU and disk part (with it's batteries) in a "brick" and make a separate screen that essentially just runs remote desktop over some appropriate wireless connection. Depending on your needs, you can mix and match bricks and screens of different sizes. A one kilo brick could go in your back pack while you walk around with a screen. Or, if you are indoors, the brick stays on your desk, and you walk around the office. Or, you could bring the brick home from the office and dock it with your home office 24" screen and keyboard, much like you would with a laptop. Then of course, you wouldn't need a wireless screen.
There is a difference between this and a laptop is the mix and match part. If you need a truly handheld device that you can use while walking around or standing up away from a desk, a laptop is not a good solution. Typing with one hand, holding the laptop in the other is strenous. Especially if we are talking top-of-the-line laptops. Tablets are limited in computing power, and are heavier than a same-size screen would have to be with this model.
For an application/product such as this, I would start with uClibc and busybox. Then build on top of that like LFS for the big userspace apps. Looks cool, tho.
C|N>K
I call bullshit. Show me a citation with working links to back up your assertion here please.
The Treo 600 works WITH NetBSD, just like it works with Linux, FreeBSD, and OSX... but the Treo 600 does not RUN NetBSD... and nobody that I know of has ported it over to do so. I would know, I manage this little project, and I'd be one of the first to find this out.
Write code? Gee I don't want to have to go out and Buy Monta Vista when I have a prefectly good distribuation to work with. How do you boot and
install your own OS? JTAG? Is there going to be
shell root access so we can make our own modifications?
Cupboardware (n):
Any useless but superficially attractive item of consumer electonics purchased by people with too much money that is played with for two weeks and then condemned to reside in a cupboard for 18 months until being eBayed or given to the local charity shop.
2 fps - wow, such a thing would be perfect for watching Japanese cartoons. Did you ever think of taking it to a convention where full-grown men watch children's cartoons?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The thing that caught my eye was the Remote Control ...
...
. 800$ seems almost reasonable 8)
As the happy owner of a home theater, I have a few (8 or 9) remotes, the XBOX media player hitting the Linux Fileserver, then the amp itself, plus the various cd/tape player
I was thinking of getting a cheap (lol) tablet pc, an extensible bathroom mirror handle and hack together a nifty all-in-one appliance to control everything from my couch, including email and VNC to the rest of the network (a few pcs, including ONE windows machine)...
When you see that a Philips TSI6400 I Pronto costs $1,129.00, and that it has more or less comparable functions http://store.yahoo.com/aboutgizmos/phtsipr.html..
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I've seen a lot of posts that say it's not small enough for a PDA, or it's not a laptop. When I looked at it, the first thing I thought was they were trying for the living room/portable internet access. That's just what it looked like from the start. reading the specs tells the same story. If you want to be able to get to the internet or other PC stuff from anywhere in the house this is your answer. Actually it is darn good for that....except for the price part (which is a bit high, but not unreasonable) this thing fits better than anything I've seen yet. Most people I've talked to have a wireless router on thier broadband. This thing lets you get that connection out of your home office and is useful in it's own right.
Am I the only one that thought they hit closer to the right design than most yet?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
You don't need to buy MontaVista; you can compile everything using Kegel's crosstool. Also, all flash locations are unlockable at the OS-level by the hacker so, if you're confident, you can write your own u-boot (or whatever) to flash. Of course if you flash something bad you'll have a paperweight and will need to go in through JTAG.
Root access is available by hitting ctrl-shift-1 from within our GUI. Once you're there you can enable remote root login by setting a passwd and firing up sshd.
We also have three serial ports, one of which is pre-configured for console.
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad