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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.'"
Were they not going to do this a few years ago as well and then shelved the whole thing.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
It is probably a good move for them because: 1. Lower the cost as they don't have to spend as much in development (eventually) for their own OS. 2. They are in a niche now since Linux has a great following 3. Did I say we are all Linux lovers?
My Own Millions Blog
Given that PDAs are falling behind in the face of smart phones, going to Linux might just entice the linux haXX0r community to produce some fun applications that help Palm in the marketplace.
I don't know if there is already an unofficial palm Linux, but having it officially sanctioned would be a good thing.
Hell, I'm tempted to get one now just to have some coding fun, seriously.
My Treo 650 does some real weird things sometimes.
My 650 will freeze for up to 20 seconds, at least once a day.
I have friends who own the Palm version of the 700 and these do some very weird things. They reboot themselves constantly, email is very flaky, syncing to Mac computers is so-so at best. Basically syncing is a crapshoot.
I find this to be a good thing and I hope the linux version will be a more stable OS than Palm.
Any cell phone that doesn't have me wishing to toss it through a window after 1 month of initial use, someone tell me, I'd gladly buy it.
I'd love to get a symbian phone but Verizon doesn't have it. I loathe Verizon. I was a t-mobile customer and I really miss the GSM phones. I think once my contract ends with Verizon I will go back to t-mobile or cingular.
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
All handhelds have free PDF readers available. Frankly - this is something you could have found out from a 5 second google query.
I've owned a Treo 300, 600 and 700. I've read PDF's on all of them.
HOWEVER: It is not easy. The best is the 700. The high-res screen (320x320) makes a big difference. But even then, you're talking about using a device that has a screen that's 2 inches x 2 inches to try to read a document formatted for 8.5 x 11. The whole idea of a PDF is to preserve precise paper-based formatting. Working with that on a handheld is awkward at best.
Your best option is to convert the PDF to text and read the text on the PDF, using some sort of eReader (Plucker or ,A HREF="http://www.isilo.com/">iSilo come to mind). I read lots of PG material that way, as well as IBM Redbooks that I've converted to text.
Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
TFA it somewhat ambiguous. It is hard to tell whether Palm, inc. announced that they are going to release a pda based on the Access Linux platform, or if they have gotten back into the software business and developed their own platform.
For those who don't know, several years ago Palm split into PalmOne, the hardware side, and PalmSource, the OS developers. Since then, PalmSource has been bought by Access Ltd, and PalmOne has renamed themselves Palm, Inc. PalmSource's PalmOS 6, aka "Cobalt", was never used in a production PDA. After PalmSource was bought by Access, it was announced that future PalmOS releases would be based on Linux, with binary compatibility for previous PalmOS apps.
Unfortunately, Palm, Inc.'s website doesn't mention anything about Linux in either the press release section or the Developer section. And Access released the Access Linux Platform 1.0 two months ago. TFA does say that Palm, Inc. will once again have control over their own OS. This seems to indicate that they have spurned the ALP. If that is the case, one has to wonder how they will offer backwards compatibility, given that the PalmOS IP is owned by Access. Perhaps the permanent license they acquired gives Palm the right to do this kind of thing.
On the other hand, I don't see how they would have any less control if they just used ALP, given that most of it is GPL, and the rest is the same backwards compatibility code that they will need anyways.
Well, there's PalmPDF, which I've had reasonable success with on my Treo 650. PDFs contain their own fonts so that's not an issue, really. My Treo doesn't have a case and seems to be holding up pretty well, even after I've dropped it a few times (and my kids have dropped it a few more times). Works pretty well, though with only a 320x320 screen, there's only so much you can see at a time. You'd probably want one with a bigger screen (e.g. 320x480 ones exist), and as much RAM and as fast a processor as possible.
I make too many phone calls with it, but I use its PDA and viewing functions quite a bit every day, and battery life is fine. Don't think I've ever gone below 75% charge (I plug it in every night).
I can't say that I've worked with 200MB PDFs, though. I think ~10MB is the biggest I've messed with. And someone else will have to tackle Windows or Linux-based platforms. However, I've heard generally good things about the Nokia 770 - it's basically a small Linux box with an 800x480 screen...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I loved the classic Palm applications. No boot-up time, no waiting, no graphics-heavy Windows-like desktop compressed to the size of an index card ...
There seemed to be a lot of hobbyist development, too. People found ways to make the Palm keep track of what they wanted. As I recall, the Palm database format encouraged a lot of interchangeability and standardization. Mind-mapping and outlines were easy as pie and quick to bring up, so I rarely lost any ideas.
When they moved with Windows CE (or whatever they called the mobile variant that week), I threw up my hands. The hardware wasn't suited to it, and there were few -- if any -- replacements for the apps I cared to use. As far as I know, all the good stuff went the way of the dodo.
So I guess my question is: how does the move to Linux bode for developers? Will there be compatibility with any of the classic Palm OS or Windows CE apps, or will we once again have to build from scratch?
You have severely underestimated the GPL. I suggest you go read it. The GPL is not that dense. But to answer the question at hand, yes, all customers will have access to the source code for the GPL portions (which will be the bulk of the OS). All customers will have the right to re-distribute and modify that code. That is the price Palm pays for using Free software.
Given Palm's history of being developer friendly, it will probably be possible to flash the PDAs with custom ROMs with all proprietary code stripped. Depending on the exact terms, it may even be possible to create a custom ROM with proprietary backwards compatibility code included.
"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.
OK, lets be honest, we all need our cell phones.
Some of us need our blackberries.
We all want our music.
Rather than juggle all three, there is no reason why the cell phone can't do everything and more. After all a computer, whether it is in a P.C., Cellphone, or what ever is still a computer.
IMHO, Palm is wrong, they are coming into the system from the wrong direction, they MUST focus on the phone first and most, then blackberry, then MP3 player. Deliver a package to Verizon, Cingular, Orange, etc.
This is why iPhone will do better.
You mean something like the Nokia N800, which comes with Opera and Flash, works with a wide range of bluetooth GPS units, including Navicore and TomTom, and has a freely available Rhapsody client?
The key word in my post was "cheap". Linus's little hobby may not have taken off it wasn't easy for college-age folks like me to buy the components for a cheap PC and run either Linux or Windows on it in the early 1990s. A lot of the people who helped Linux (and its programs) get going couldn't afford a second PC, or were happy a second PC was cheap when they did get one.
So...although Windows may not have helped the creation of Linux as a hobby, it certainly helped make Linux accessible to more people by making PC hardware cheap.
Let me know if you need more help...