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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."
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.
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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.
No, the coolest new Linux device is the Nokia 770.
7 70
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,1522,,00.html?orig=/
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.
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.
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.
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.
OK, I guess you won't be interested to hear about the full dev environment we include on the Pepper Pad and standard crosstool cross-compiling support.
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad
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.
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]
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.
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.