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."

Comments

Free (as in beer and speech) mobile distributions

[Krankheit]

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.

Where's The Niche?

[DanielMarkham]

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

It may run Linux...

[akeyes]

...but the video on the site requires Windows Media Player 9.

Re:It may run Linux...

[erroneus]

Really? I guess it "sorta" does but let me clue you in a helpfule way:

Get mplayer, the codec collection and the plugin for mozilla/firefox. You will find that you can play it back just as nicely, if not better, than in Windows. Worked like a champ for me.

If it helps:

I run FC4, nVidia-something-er-other proprietary drivers (RPM packages from ATRPMS.net) mplayer, mplayer plug-in (RPM packages from livna) and the codec collection (tarball from mplayer.hu). Most all of this done without any technical skills -- I just followed the directions from http://home.gagme.com/greg/linux/fc4-tips.php --here.

Don't know how easy it is with other distros, but FC4 is a pretty easy place for me to start anyway.

Over priced, Under powered

[erroneus]

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.

Re:Over priced, Under powered

[ciroknight]

Well, it's pretty obvious to me that this product isn't for you.

Since you're looking for a laptop with tablet input features, I should recommend to you some of the newer Toshiba laptops.

But, since so few of you guys actually read the beginning of the article, I'll try to reiterate what this thing is useful for.

Since my PDA is so lowly, I doubt it could control my air conditioner. But, with this thing, I could hook it to every vent in the home and control the air by regions, and still have the pad with me. Or I could watch the news on it, or read it like a reusable newspaper. It reminds me freakishly of the kind of tablets you'd see on Star Trek.

Pricing is always a problem when anyone brings anything to the market. If the price is too high, the market will moderate it down. If the price is too low, the supply will dry up and prices will raise themselves. Simple economics.

Just because it's not ready for you, doesn't mean it's not ready for me.. I'd buy one to tinker with (if for nothing else), if I had the money, but I needed a laptop for college more ;)

Re:Over priced, Under powered

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for Pepper.

1. Wait a few months, you'll get 2.6. FWIW Montavista has backported most of the exciting stuff from 2.6 to the 2.4 kernel we use, so we're not missing out on all that much.
2. 1024x768 on an 8" screen gets a bit small, and the LCDs are hard to find.
3. It has video out, read the spec sheet. DVD playback is best accomplished by copying the DVD to the Pad. Perhaps someday there will be a better solution.
4. We're working on it
5. The XScale only supports USB 1, so adding USB 2 requires more chips = more space, more power, more cost. Stay tuned.
6. Firewire may not be the best high-speed bus to add. We'll see.
7. Read the spec sheet, it has bluetooth. Works, even!

Who's going to provide support for Knoppix? You? We're a step ahead of you in that department, we already have a Linux that works, we control what packages are included, and we've locked down the UI for normal users so they don't know it's Linux underneath. Hackers can get underneath just fine if they really want, we like them.

DVD drives take up space, cost money, and use a godawful amount of power. It's a *good* thing we didn't include one, trust me.

Re:Is it just me

[`Sean]

Can you install linux app packages? Is there access to a shell? It doesn't seem so.

Yes, you can. And yes, there is. www.pepperhacks.com

Fujitsu p1120 and Sharp mm20 are much better

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Free (as in beer and speech) mobile distributio

[`Sean]

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.

Re:"Linux Finds Its Way to More Handheld Devices"

[`Sean]

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.

Patent pending?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I used to be in this line of work - best of luck

[Weaselmancer]

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.