Linux PDAs

[Michael Torrie]

On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 16:22 -0700, Brandon Stout wrote:
> I've been looking at these URLs:
> 
>   http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8728350077.html
>   http://www.access-company.com/products/linux/alp.html
> 
> Interestingly, PalmSource has had some agreement or merger, which makes
> me wonder if PalmOS is going Linux...
> 
> Anyway, these URLs beg the question: Who uses Linux-powered PDA's, and
> what experiences have you had with them?  I'm looking into my next PDA,
> and this inquiring mind wants to know.

I had a Zaurus once, but it left a lot to be desired.  Mainly the
battery life was terrible and the screen wasn't so great.  And the
excitement of being able to run bash in a terminal wore off very
quickly.  

I question whether whether there's anything (maybe besides video) that a
400 MHz arm processor can do that the old 16 MHz palm processor could do
back in the day.  Trying to shoe-horn big OSs (like Linux or Windows CE)
into a PDA isn't always great, in my opinion.

On the other hand the Qtopia environment for linux is very good, and GPE
shows a lot of promise.  http://gpe.handhelds.org and
http://qpe.handhelds.org (or http://opie.handhelds.org ).  Interestingly
enough, GPE uses a tiny X11 server and so you can actually run remote
X11 apps (if they fit on the small screen).  

Michael


> 
> Brandon Stout
> http://mscis.org
> http://flfn.org
> 
> 
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