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Palm to go Linux
jetkins writes "The Melbourne Age reports that company officials announced Tuesday that Palm will move to a new Linux-based platform 'to help the company compete better.' The move was announced 'during a meeting with analysts in New York, where they also discussed the company's business strategy and refused to talk about recent rumors of a possible buyout.'"
Currently, I have documents in excess of 200MB abd would like to read them while on the go. Could a slashdotter help me out thanks. If one can go ahead and recommend a model, thay would even be great.
I had a Sharp Zaurus which is/was a GNU/Linux based PDA. Out of the box it only had support for Windows, and was really designed for windows users. In fact I get much better performance out of my Windows Mobile 5 PDA + Fedora Core 6 than I ever did with my Zaurus. I get proprietry stuff on the PDA like TomTom satnav (not available for linux PDA despite the Tomtom standalone uint being linux based). Development branch of Synce support syncing my PDA with Evolution. I can use Minimo web browser. I hate the fact I have to use windows on my pda despite not using windows at home or work but I simply wouldn't get any benfit from a linux pda.
In short. Linux on a PDA is a huge success for Linux but is really no better for everyday linux users unless we get proprietry stuff like Tomtom, RealPlayer, Flash available for it (not completely unlikely).
Let's see Palm OS, Win CE, and now Linux? Sounds like just the way to lose even more developers.
This is Palm's management clutching at straws.... what was that comment about the iPhone from the Palm CEO? Sad to see a once pioneering company being run over a once beleaguered company.
RIP Palm... here lies the Filofax of the late 90's.
-S
nope. The Nokia 770 is way better hardware than Palm has ever produced, same as the Sharp Zaurus line. Nither one has came to the front as the holy grail.
Both are awesome, and honestly do thigns that all other PDA's dream of. But it all comes down to one simple fact.
The biggest buyers of PDA's are executives and they dont care to run a SSH session, sniff wifi packets, watch movies, or hack the planet... they want complete integration with their outlook application and email.
and they chose blackberry because it's the only item that has the complete integration that works right. (not that I'm a fan of the blackberry, but adoption and useage of it is way WAY greater than pocket windows and palm put together.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"There would have been no cheap Linux today if Microsoft hadn't flattened/commoditized the computer hardware market by the start of the 1990's."
Because somehow Microsoft doing this inspired Linus Torvalds to create a MINIX-like free kernel for research purposes?
Or because Windows made x86 popular (rather than the other way around)? Yet I still don't even see how that would've mattered one way or the other to the creation of Linux.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
at linux devices
I'd call your attention to the transition chart in the center.
Does this really make sense to anybody? Has the business market shown any real preference for the Windows Mobile platform over, say, RIM's BlackBerry?
There are two things that drive MS OS hegemony in IT departments: (1) management complexity and (2) the idea that they will develop and maintain apps internally. However, once you introduce mobile devices into the mix, it really doesn't matter what OS they run from a management perspective. The dominant question is how complex is to integrate the device into corporate infrastructures, a game at which RIM excels and Palm fails. Also, successful mobile apps developed in house by IT departments are rare. There are too many complexities and idiosyncracies. Working in the field, it's a lot like developing web applications would be if there weren't a massive industry trying to train us and sell us tools to make the job easier.
I doubt the Windows Mobile platform is really intended to play the market role outlined there. They have some other reason to have it in the lineup.
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What, there was no computer industry, no competition between diverse new products, no standards activity, no open source software? I was there, man. The industry was thriving, there were dozens of different microprocessors hitting the market, vendors were moving in droves from proprietary operating systems to Unix, the price/performance trend had never been better, every University department was getting its own computer and building its own network, and there were interesting jobs everywhere. Though there was as yet no GPL, software developed and shared among users was actively supported by the industry.
All Microsoft did was to show up at the party with a cheap bottle of wine. Indeed, its notoriously poor quality of software plus parasitic corporate ethics arguably skewed and damaged the industry far more than it helped.
I would very much like to see what the world would have become without Microsoft. My guess is that Linux would still have come along as an alternative to the commercial Unixes, and would have tipped the balance toward much better interoperation between all of them. They were never very far apart to begin with. We would have a Unix world, or possibly by this time we would have (gasp) collectively outgrown Unix in favor of something even better. Instead Microsoft has done little more than hold us back.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
I would argue that excessive integration has ruined the PDA/phone market. For every person I know that actually uses the bells and whistles on their phones I know 10 that don't do anything beyond a contact list and phone calls. I am evidently in the minority but I would rather have several devices that do their job well than one that does them all half-assed. I have yet to see a "music" phone that was really a decent mp3 player, I haven't seen a "game" phone that was really a good gaming platform and I have yet to see a Smartphone that hasn't made extreme sacrifices in order to cram its functionality into a postage stamp screen.
I've gone from palm to windows mobile to a smartphone and finally to a blackberry. In going from platform to platform I have had to make concessions and sacrifices for the sake of convenience with my latest move I just ditched all the functionality for decent email and phone support. The integration push has killed the pda, Palm and MS just dont know it yet.
Palm would do well to reexamine the whole concept of the PDA interface if the do end up changing the OS. Don't try to do what everybody else does, don't try to make it just like a laptop, but smaller. Just do what you do simply and well.
Apple's got the right idea with iPhone (well, except for possibly locking out third-party development-where Palm got it exactly right with all of their tools), but Palm's got a head start...
One product Microsoft really has gotten right is the PocketPC. I'm not saying it's perfect, but the Windows Mobile platform has F/OSS and commercial software available for it, is not crippled like Apple's iPhone, has excellent handwriting recognition based on work pioneered by Apple's Newton project, and offers excellent multimedia capabilities (in fact I rip most of my DVDs so I can play them on my PocketPC). Up to now, I've HATED Palms, dating back to the original Pilot. I've had Palm PDAs, and hated them. Palm dropped the ball on multimedia, downplaying it, saying customers don't want it. Microsoft, with PocketPC 2000, included full multimedis support (hell, there were even video capture and TV tuner accessories for PocketPCs then!). Palm forced you to learn Graffiti. Microsoft offered handwriting recognition, block character recognition (Graffiti compatibility), and an on-screen keyboard, as well as support for physical keyboards. Palm's sync software sucked, and Microsofts, although unstable at times, didn't suck nearly as much.
I've thought about installing Linux on my iPAQ 3670, since Compaq actually used to install Linux on the iPAQ for customers, but now that PocketPC is so old it's doubtful that I'd be able to get it up and running again if the flash fails, and the iPAQ oldtimers are not with HP/Compaq any more. Even though I never use the 3670 any more (I have an hx2795 now) it's nice to know that I have the option to use it if the new one fails.
The down sides of the PocketPC:
- Linux will not mount it as a mass storage device (I work around it by using ssh/SCP over Wifi but as you know SCP is slow)
- SynCE is a pain in the ass to set up
- It is not user-repairable (software-wise): HP's daylight savings time fix DID NOT WORK. Were it Linux, I'd be able to easily fix it myself.
- Microsoft still insists that a close/kill button is unnecessary
- The memory model is still lame
- Vendor support (for updates, bug fixes, etc.) is weak to nonexistent
if Palm switches to Linux, here is what it would require for me to buy it:
- Let me customise the desktop
- multimedia should meet or exceed the high end PocketPCs (such as the hx2795)
- Comply with the GPL. Release the source, let us modify it. Don't DRM the appliance so we can't make fixes.
- Make syncing with Linux a high priority
- Make it mountable as a mass storage device
- get Teletype or TomTom to port their GPS products (I know, TomTom appliances run Linux)
Multimedia and GPS are what attracted me to the PocketPC in the first place. Before then, people would GIVE me PDAs, and I wouldn't use them.
It'll take a lot to get me to buy a Linux PDA, because Microsoft has largely gotten it right. I hate desktop Windows, I hate server editions of Windows, and I hate Microsoft's anti-customer policies as of late, however, they got one thing almost completely right and that is the PocketPC. Every Linux PDA I've seen so far has been limited either by low volume (so little support), weak hardware, or really lame GUI designs and limited I/O options.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The anti-integration grognards always crack me up. You are aware that you're sitting in front of the most multi-function device ever conceived of by Man, right?
Convergence is not the problem. Poorly designed convergence is a problem. There is no technical reason why a phone shouldn't be a perfectly good music player. There's no reason for a PDA not to include phone capabilities. It's free pie. The hardware is basically the same stuff.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I want 4"+ screen on my PDA. I don't want to hold a device this big to my ear. As simple as that. Yes, bluetooth earset is an option but then we're back to two devices, ain't we?
Microsoft did not create generic hardware operating systems -- if you are college age today you were not old enough back then. But long before MS and its PC DOS there was a company called Digital Research and CP/M, in the age of 8-bit computers. Also Unix variations were coming with the same "run on many hardware platforms" angle -- although back then Unix was not a "personal computer" thing.
It is alright to say that cheap hardware came due to the unbundling of soft/hardware. It is also fine to say that cheap hardware was great for Linux propagation. But it is not fair to say IMHO that without MS there would be no unbundling.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
It probably would have been an OS/2 world. OS/2 v3.X (Warp) was FAR FAR ahead of Microsoft at the time.
Yeah, I don't get the "thank MS for cheap PC's" claim either. Cheap PC's were going to happen with or without MS.
I love classic PalmOS, too, but here's the thing: hardware has changed, a lot.
Phones these days have specs like a desktop PC from ten years ago - except for the screen, which is physically smaller and lower resolution. Classic PalmOS was very well suited to handheld devices of 7-10 years ago: small memory footprint, very lightweight and CPU-efficient. The new devices are much, much more powerful, and Palm's not using that power effectively at all. The current hardware can accommodate a richer environment comfortably.
And yet, as you say, with the screen constraints and the mobility concerns you probably don't want something that's just a scale-down of a typical desktop OS. It needs to be better suited to the display. Microsoft has been gradually improving in this area (sometimes by lifting a page or two from Palm's book) while simultaneously providing a full-featured environment. Palm's software has always been well-suited to the interface but these days it's not a good match for the hardware. So hopefully what they're going to do here is continue to provide a good mobile UI (maybe even stealing a page or two from MS's book) but provide better underpinnings - take advantage of the things that made Palm a good platform in 1997 and make it a good fit for today's devices. That's quite possible, you know - a system doesn't need to be able to run on a 16MHz Dragonball in order to be efficient or lightweight by today's standards.
Personally, I say to hell with backward compatibility. I can learn a new API and get new compilers. I'd even be down with buying new copies of the apps I use for the new OS, if necessary. Better than than running under PACE, or getting stuck with a poor collection of system libraries for the sake of compatibility. I think developers can expect a lot of changes when coding natively for the new platform: switching from Db Manager to a filesystem for data storage, inferring datatypes using file extensions (yuck), and -hopefully- all-new UI.
Now, I think there's basically two ways this could go. First, they could create their new OS and model some of it after PalmOS, but follow WinCE's lead on some other details. If they do that, I think they'll have a solid system. The other possibility is that they'll overexert themselves trying to match eye candy from the iPhone, and the underlying OS will suffer. I really hope they do the former.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
But the iPhone platform will be closed.