Slashdot Mirror
Smartphones For Text SSH Use — Revisited
jfischet writes "Back in 2005 a Slashdot user asked this question and the responses were helpful — but I'd like to ask again to see what has changed in three years. I'd like to know what this community thinks is the best choice of smartphone for remotely administering Linux/UNIX boxes via SSH."
Hmphf - frist posit?
Anyway, my solution is not a smartphone. I use an LG CU500, bluetooth tethered to a 12" G4 iBook. I get a real keyboard and AT&T (originally Cingular) gets me 3G in most places I go. Even on "edge" service, SSH is tolerable, 200ms-ish of latency.
When It Counts.
When I read the headline, I thought "I wonder how long it's going to take for some fanboy to recommend the iPhone, despite the fact that it doesn't have a keyboard & is inferior for text entry compared to say a blackberry, or even some of the HTC monstrosities."
And there you were - right in the first post. Thank you for reaffirming my faith in fanboi nature.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
When I read the headline, I thought "I wonder how long it's going to take for some fanboy to recommend the iPhone, despite the fact that it doesn't have a keyboard & is inferior for text entry compared to say a blackberry, or even some of the HTC monstrosities."
The iPhone is fine for typing text. And the fully dynamic interface allows for some interesting possibilities for shell control, along with more room for a wider view on the screen. Penny Aracde of course, put it best... "If you find such things unpleasant, then I suggest you develop a taste for forced labor because by the year twenty-twenty all that sneer is going to get you is a slot in the underclass boiling corpses."
Don't be so dismissive until you see what terminal possibilities might arrive with the SDK.
And there you were - right in the first post. Thank you for reaffirming my faith in fanboi nature.
Don't your eyes scratch a lot with that wool you keep pulling over yourself?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Being my two phones of the past 3 years.
The E70 has a -real- keyboard, and runs Putty perfectly.
over the GPRS/3G network, or over WiFi, your choice.
The N95 has a regular phone pad, but I use a folding external bluetooth keyboard if I'm doing a lot of text.
and -every- feature of the N95 rocks. Putty runs perfectly, as always.
The iPhone is fine for typing text.
Yes, for short messages, typing in URLs, etc, it is fine.
What the submitter asked for is not fine general text entry, but the best choice, specifically for ssh. An iPhone (where every slash, period & ampersand is three taps away) is a poor choice for ssh text entry.
Don't be so dismissive until you see what terminal possibilities might arrive with the SDK.
Right, thanks - we're looking for a solution right now, not a possible solution that may come about one day.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I would much rather just have a small non smrt phone and a EeePC or similarly diminutive laptop with a actual albeit smallish keyboard.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Seriously, I'd have caved in and bought an iPhone by now were it not for my need for SSH with a decent keyboard. Oh, and that I want a less restricted development environment. Some of the Android phones should fit the bill, if you can hold out a few months.
Presumably...could also be...Possibly....potentially better...possibility.... don't....what if they did add a model with a physical keyboard?...we do not know everything ...so much in the world may change...
Do you want to use a few more weasel words in your post? Qualify things a little more?
You'd make a great white house spokesperson.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I've been using my Sony P1i for precisely that purpose for about a year now. What makes the P1i a little bit more suitable is the fact that it supports wireless.
Instead of having to lug around a laptop when I'm on call I've been able to rely on the P1i with a combination of VPN client and Putty as my sole means of accessing everything from servers to routers, switches and firewalls.
> How many handheld devices really have enough physical keys to make SSH useful to any extent?
Well, I'm bound to be wrong if I come up with an exact number, but at least 5 have been mentioned already : Nokia 770, N800, N810, E70, and E90. OK, the 770, N800 and N810 aren't phones and they supersede each other (though they do VoIP), but the other two seem to be worth investigating, if you ask me.
I use an E90, and the keyboard is functional, though I wouldn't want to use it in anger - for that, I use an Apple bluetooth keyboard which I take along with me when I know I'm going to be doing stuff like that.
Max.
There are a couple of logical fallacies with your argument.
You are betting on some application coming out in a month, or less then a month. Your argument seems to be that once this application is developed, tested, etc. in less then a month, it will *instantly* be the best ssh application. That's rubbish.
You state that some unknown improvement made to the iphone, at some unkown point in the future might address all the issues theOP might have with the iPhone, and the OP should therefore wait with making *any* decision until such time as the IPhone has this improvement. This logic would extend to saying "and if the next model doesn't have it, wait some more". Thats ridiculous.
And, on the basis of this deeply flawed argument, you call the OP a "hater". That's playground logic. What are you, 12? Does your daddy know you are using his PC?
oh, and if you are still reading, please make sure you realise I am not saying *anything* about any of apple's products (just want to make sure you dont start changing the subject and calling me an apple hater as well).
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Buy one and put the AT&T SIM card in the phone?