Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Palmtop Computing And Linux
Uart asks: "I am really interested in buying a Psion palmtop, however, I spend almost 90% of my time using Linux and I would want to be able to transfer files to and from the palmtop and desktop computers, as well as syncronizing it with a calendar/address book application. Is this possible under Linux, or is the Psion windows only?"
And Alternate Personality submitted this one: "Being one of them busy college students I carry a Philips Velo1 w/ Windows CE(v. 1.1) machine around with me so i can type up papers or jott down some quick code between classes. But, using Linux I'm at a loss. I have to keep the cradle on my girlfriend's windows box then transfer my paper to disk, because there is no support for such a device under linux, at least as far as i know. Can someone point me in the write direction on how to get this working. Either with existing software OR how to communicate with the device so i can write my own? "
I have an EvereX freestyle, and it's a handy little toy. I would love to actually *USE* it once and a while, but win98 partition at home doesn't like it at all...
I've emailed everex asking for specs on the device and/or the protocol to communicate to it, so that I could develop linux software, which I offered to give to them to use for their purposes. Not only have I not recieved the information, I've received no response to the email whatsoever.
I don't like this sort of business at all.
CE devices do not use TCP/IP to communicate. They just establish a plain old serial connection like your POTS modem. Then communicate at 115.2Kbit/sec. Very simple- to get it to work is simple. In fact, you can bypass active sync and write your own routine using any standard serial transfer method. You simply read the data on the CE device and transmit it over the serial port in char arrays (char bob[1024];) and send it over to the linux box.
WinCE does indeed run TCP/IP as its standard connection protocol to Windows machines. If you take a look at http://www.winfiles.com/apps/ce/netapps.html
you'll find a wide range of TCP/IP apps available, including Telnet, IMAP mail clients (very cool use of IMAP!), FTP, web browsers, and so on.
I don't have my CE machine anymore, so I can't verify whether its possible to connect via the serial cable to a Linux box rather than a windows one. I'd guess it is, but who knows. At the very least, by default when the PC is connecting it normally tries to establish a "partnership" with a PC. I don't know what'll happen after this fails.
Nec has a nice little device here, it blows the socks off of the palm. 32 megs of ram 24 megs of rom (removeable never the less :) ). Check it out here So far the linuxce project has mainly been a vaporware, but it is progressing. Someone on the Mips mailing list was working on booting a simular device, just cross your finger :)
Calcaria is a project to port Linux to Psion Series 5 and Geofox One palmtops. The thing is called Linux7k, check it out.
You can get a Windows CE machine (And Windows too for that matter) to talk to a Linux box, just set up a ppp connection which reads the string "CLIENT/SERVER" from the device, and writes the string "SERVER", then start ppp.
The best resource I have found is www.linuxce.org
and the Nino is the best
you can run ipx over ppp, and anything else I would imagine, just being ppp does not make it tcp/ip.
If you go to http://cecon.cjb.net you'll find a freeware utility called FileGram. There's a Win9x version and a wince version. All it does is allow xmodem transfers over the serial cable.
I just save all my documents as rtf files and xmodem them over!
When combined with the lha compressor/extractor available from www.cemonster.com you can back up your entire CE device to your hard drive in a few minutes (Assuming enough free space on the handheld for the file)
While a Win/DOS guru, I'm a Linux Newbie, so I don't know what specific apps would be best for using xmodem over a serial connection, but xmodem isn't exactly hard to code. (I seem to recall an old GWBASIC version I used to move files to/from a VAX/VMS system a few years back)
Unless you have all the equipment sitting around (i.e. two PCMCIA ethernet cards), why don't you get an old 486 instead, and keep the libretto for more portable positions? It's easy enough to find 486's or low end pentiums for free if you ask around. Pick up a few ISA NICs and you're all set...
Any info on Linux for Series3 (or is that pushing it?)
Well, it was in linux-mips@fnet.fr it was cc to a linuxcd-devel@linuxce.org. They where starting to boot a Vadem Clio that runs on Vr4111. Very cool stuff, they borrowed pbsdboot the netbsd bootloader. This happended on the mailing list around 7/18 or so.
Now I understand, why you where talking mips 2000. :) whoops :)
because I cant type/write. its the VR 41XX, not the 2140
For those interested there is currently a port of ELKS to the Psion Series 3a (hopefully this will be expanded to cover the whole SIBO Psion range).
h tm
The 'state of play' is a booting kernel and shell, with minimal SSD support.
Details can be found at:
http://www.mungewell.ndirect.co.uk/linux/index.
Go easy on the Slashdot effect...
Mungewell.
sorry forgot change 'subject' of previous posting....
mungewell
Hmm easy, get either an HPC Pro which has UNC network support built in, or get the add on in the developer area of wince on m$'s site
They use ppp connection but I use one of those cheap ne2000 pcmcia clones myself.
I run samba on the linux machine, printing from CE transfering files, all works great.
It does not have drive letters so just use \\server\printer \\server\homedir.
Now if someone just would reverse engineere that activesync stuff.
But, if you don't care about synchronization (and since I don't "share" my calendar, and since I always carry my palmtop, I don't care about synchronization), or if you don't mind writing some code, consider the HP 200LX DOS-based palmtop.
With good built-in apps, a full keyboard, and lots of third party software, my HP not only keeps track of my appointments, contacts, and fcheckbook, but also is my ultraportable laptop where I've edited Perl and Java code, and even compiled some C code. File transfer with the Linux workstation is no problem, and backups are straightforward, too.
Base models come with 2 or 4 MB of storage, though you can get a 32 MB upgrade, and can use flash/CompactFlash memory cards for storage, too.
The 200LX has a 9-pin serial port that lets me use it as a serial terminal for my workstation for those odd times when a misbehaved X application locks up my keyboard. With a PC Card modem, I've controlled Unix boxes remotely. It has a built-in battery charger so I don't have to remove my NiMH cells when they need charging. And it's super durable.
While PalmOS, Newton, and CE users write about having to reset their devices, the 200LX is rock-stable (yes, with MS-DOS 5.0).
Other than synchronization, the only things the HP is really missing are secure TCPIP login clients: either SSH 1.2.x or SSLTelnet would be much appreciated. The 200LX will run DOS PGP, and there are many Unix apps that have been ported to DOS, including Perl 4.
To learn more about the 200LX, visit http://www.hplx.net
Oh, did I mention the 200LX can run Minix? (http://minix.hplx.net)
The Libretto 50CT is now down to $650 in some shops; the 70CT, $850. Hit www.pricescan.com to find them.
I have a libretto, there are a ton of resources.
check : http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html
I highly recommend it.
installing linux was a snap.
http://www.gawth.com/belial/libretto.html
New at Everything Linux is the Linux News Portal. Still under development, but aiming to be a one-stop Linux resource.
Seems to be a pretty good piece of hardware, dragonball-powered. Can it talk to a linux box?
There's a utility that converts at least EPOC Word files - search Freshmeat.
--
http://www.wholepop.com/
Whole Pop Magazine Online - Pop Culture
http://www.wholepop.com/
Whole Pop Magazine Online - Pop Culture
Psion has apparently been quite helpful in getting
the kernel to run on their palmtop, and made
their information available to developers. Even if the kernel isn't 100% yet, it will be.
I was looking at palmtops and pdas, and was going to buy one tomorrow. After visiting the Calcaria page, I decided to order one from buy.com tonight.
It requires a small OPL program to be running on the S5, so you'll need PsiWin (or minicom under Linux connecting to the Terms app on the Psion) to transfer that file over first.
I'm currently using a somewhat more expensive, but convenient method of transferring: I have a 48M compact flash card for my Psion, and a PCMCIA adapter that allows me to mount it under Linux on my laptop, so I can transfer files that way.
If you have a copy of Windows, it might also be a workable solution to buy VMWare and use it to run a small Windows install for PsiWin...
That said, I love my Psion. It may not be as compact as Pilot or as flashy as a color-screen CE device, but the EPOC software is a pleasure to use. It's a very well-designed machine. I wish it was a little more Linux-friendly, but you can't have everything. Supposedly the new Series 5mx is twice as fast and comes with twice the RAM, and has a brighter screen, so it should be a very nice little machine.
Unfortunately, I don't have any experience in this (though I just bought a Liberetto over the net just 5 min. ago... I've been searching for something like one of these for a long time). So how could I possibly be of help? Well, if you can't get two PCMCIA ethernet cards working, you could try a parallel ethernet adapter (I think they're called "pocket adapters").
That would work much better than your $1000+ Libretto or the lousy Multia...plus it won't overheat. Best of all, it's i586.
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kriston
It seems to be well underway.
http://www.calcaria.net/
My PDA running LINUX can beat your Quad XEON running WINDOWS as a (webserver/mailserver whatever)!
don't give my bull about storage space with that announcement of gigabyes of space on a small penny sized cdrom!!
Sorry, dude, but this is not a good idea.
Heat problems. I had a laptop that had great uptime... upwards of months. All I did was suspend to RAM when not in use.
Once I set it up to run constantly, without ever suspending, I got about 2 weeks before is barfed on me. Sound started messing up, and then it just froze. Totally. And this is a very reliable system.
I'd recommend something like a DEC Multia, if you can smack it around, or some other small desktop more capable than a 486/25.
Good luck, however you try it.
Christopher Kalos
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
I'm getting a cable modem next week (f/x: fingers crossed) and I want to put a libretto in as my firewall/proxy/gateway/whatever. I know I'll need to use the 100 or 110 in order to physically support two PCMCIA ethernet cards. Does anyone have any experience using two pcmcia ethernet cards in this kind of setup w/Linux?
EPOC files (Word, Spreadsheet, Data) are in a proprietary, closed, non-published format. Symbian requires you to use their "engines" (shared library interfaces, essentially) for all access to the files. Now, this wouldn't be the worst strategy... but the engine code is proprietary, and they've only ported it to Windows and EPOC! So you're stuck; Windows is the only real option.
We hear rumblings of Linux SDKs, etc. being explored, but who knows how long it may be before it happens.
(The data app. can also import from CSV files; that's something, I guess, but not as efficient as direct access.)
--
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
Conversion of the Psion file formats, and synchronization to off-palmtop applications, is the sticky point. Psion supports this only through PsiWin under Windows; the list of apps it works with is impressive, but it's only Windows (not even Mac).
The point that people often miss is that, while the PalmPilot etc. are really designed to extend your PC's data (a PDA), the Psion etc. are really computers in their own right. I do almost everything right on the Psion itself (you can even develop OPL software right on it); so as long as I have a Linux backup solution, I don't really need anything else.
But if conversion/synchronization is a concern, check out psiconv (you can find it on freshmeat) which is an effort to reverse-engineer the file formats to convert them to open formats. Psion Word to HTML has been done already.
I am very happy with my Psion 5. The 5mx is worth checking out; same great palmtop, but 2x faster, 2x the memory (16MB), and has a Java JVM built in. Actually, ANY device (Ericsson, etc.) that runs Symbian's EPOC is worth checking out! It's a very impressive, tight, responsive, multi-threaded operating system.
--
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
Yet another good use for VMware... Not only can I use MS Office (about the only MS package I have some respect for), but I can synchronise my Jornada without any problems.
Oh yeah. Windows has horrible track records with compliance to standards... The manpage for nmap has some interesting information as far as that is concerned.
(no real need to mention specifics concerning "embrace and extend")
I recall hearing something about there being a Linux port to the Newton MP120/130. As I recall, it would boot, but that's about all. More info, anyone?
LUnix might work better on a PDA than Linux.
:)
However at current date only Linux has been ported to any PDAs.
Porting LUnix should be a trival effort sence the operating system is so small.
[it has to be it's made to run on the Commodore 64]
There is a small system dependent libary than needs to be replaced. Do that and recompile with a compatable c compiler [GCC if it compiles binarys for the target PDA] and go
I don't actually exist.
I think that if Apple ever revived the Newton (which is a rumor that has began again in the Mac circles) we would see a very Linux worthy PDA. If my memory serves me correctly, the last newton was a worthy pda running at 167mhz ... I have a dumb linux box as a terminal that is slower than that.
On a related note does anyone know of any software to get the 9110 to connect and share data with a linux box. The software supplied is for windows boxes and I don't have any of those. Of course I can do PPP and FTP stuff but that is sub optimal as it works through the phone and gets pretty expensive through a wireless 9600 cell modem.
-- Oh Well
(Wow, my question actually got posted!)
Yes, i heard about that, but its far from where I would need it to be, at the moment anyway.
Since asking slashdot, I discovered a neet little gem, its not quite exacly, what i was looking for, but it is close, you can find it here, It allows you to transfer files between systems. Which would at least allow me to get some work done, but heres a question, what formats do Psion's Spreadsheet/Wordprocessor/everything else use? are they standard formats?
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Just checked out linuxce.org and they have already contacted Everex and gotten some support. Check it out.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
What other PDAs use the Dragonball? the Pilot?
Rip
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
Check out the site http://www.uclinux.org/ they ported linux to a palmpilot that has basically the same processor.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
There are some people who want to liberate WinCE devices. Check them out at: LinuxCE.org
Well, maybe in a totally unrelated but still midly similar way, I remember checking out some information at http://www.calcaria.net/ about getting Linux to run on the Psion 5's. Sounds like the perfect solution to me - why develop sync utilities when you can just run your favorite Linux scheduling software on your palmtop? :) [Unless that software doesn't exist yet...] (And of course I know that the Linux7k kernel is far from being totally complete, and I'm sure most of your favorite console apps haven't been ported yet, but hey - That's why you hack away at code, right?)
--Chris
Try this link
http://home.utah-inter.net/clalor/lin ux_ce.html
All you wanted to know getting those wince thingymijigs working under 'nix.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Anoymous Coward worte:
You can get a Windows CE machine (And Windows too for that matter) to talk to a Linux box, just set up a ppp connection which reads the string "CLIENT/SERVER" from the device, and writes the string "SERVER", then start ppp.
I write in response:
shudder I spent 2 days trying to get a Windows NT 3.51 box and my Linux box talking to each other over a null modem cable. The same cable and same Linux box were fine connecting with 2 other operating system(Macos and Linux). I knew about the client/server/bull but I still never got it working. They just wouldn't talk right. That experience showed me what is truely horrible about Windows. The Windows NT box wanted me to specify whether it was the "server" or the "client". I tried to tell it that PPP is a peer to peer protocal and that there is no "server" or "client", but it wouldn't listen (: It's these strange spins on using the standard protocals that makes it hard or impsosible to make a Windows box work with other systems, but work automagicaly with its own breed.
So try this, but be prepared for a major headache. Well that was my rant for today, I hope you people enjoyed it.
- CE Services on Windows requires that you install Dial-up Networking, the Dial-up Adapter, and Direct Cable Connection
- I haven't been able to use the Dial-up Adapter while my CE device is connected - Windows complains about the device already being in use
- The CE device gets assigned its own IP when connected (try running winipcfg with the device connected)
My 0.02...Windows CE devices do indeed use PPP to connect to their desktop counterparts. I ran a network trace (Using a Wandell&Goltermann Domino WAN protocol analyzer) and found that the only problem is that they encrypt the username/pasword sequence... I don't know if it will accept clear text since I haven't done anything yet with that trace (except studying it)... a posibility (after going to a page linked below) could be to modify an app like xisp or gppp to talk to the CE device... whatcha think boys and girls?
I hate to agree with davecrazy but...
Check that on the communications properties... I used the method you stated except that I use a dial-up connection with manual dial... I can connect my Phillips nino 210 or my Cassiopeia A-20 to my Linux notebook and transfer files... we'll see... reverse engineering Activesync shouldn't be so hard provided someone has the time to do it... what I want now is a way to upload my contacts to GnoPIM
I hate to agree with davecrazy but...
On my PalmPC 2.0 device:
/dev/ttyS0 115200 192.168.55.1:192.168.55.2 asyncmap 0 lock crtscts modem connect "chat -v CLIENT CLIENTSERVER" on my linux box, I get a message indicating that the P/PC has connected to my desktop and is searching for the "connection agent" and then another message indicating (surprise) that it was unsuccessful.
If I run Start/Programs/Communication/ActiveSync , select Serial @ 115k and my desktop's name, then run pppd
I checked the debug logs from pppd, and the only protocol the P/PC asks for is TCP/IP, so ActiveSync must be based on that. I ran a simple TCP portscanner against the P/PC and found something on port 990, but I can't tell what it is - probably some proprietary ActiveSync server.
It would be nice if someone could reverse-engineer the ActiveSync protocol, but I'm not holding my breath. In the mean time, I use an ftp server for WinCE I got from this website. The MIPS executable is here and the SH3 executable is here.
Hope this helps someone...