Stealth870

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I'm just wondering, why is it there are no full linux distro's compatible on PDA's?

For instance...

Dell has that X50v, a nice PDA with a VGA screen (640x480 landsacpe'd). That PDA has a 624 Processor and 64MB RAM. Now, I believe the storage is the ROM right? On this one it comes with 128MB of ROM, but for my example's sake let's just say that they finally started adding hard drives on these things (its so freaking dumb, you can put 5GB on an Ipod mini, but not on a PDA?). So anyway, these specs are completely capable of running linux! I've read about people use linux on worse machines :P

Now yeah, there are a lot of differences. 1, no drives like CD's or floppies (do PDA's have USB?). 2, would be input (touchscreen, and its gotta check if there's an integrated QWERTY keyboard or not). And of course some other obstacles, but after those are ironed out, why are PDA's always being used with all the crappy software? And that goes for Windows too, some people still use Windows 98, and you can easily use the PDA's specs to run that.

Why why why??

PBSchmidt

I heard you can run Linux on a Sharp Zaurus... Maybe s/o else knows more to that...

BrianNJ

all of the fancy zauri operate with linux. there are some cheap 'wizard organizers' that don't, but all of the real pda's use linux.

the reason that you don't find many pda's with linux on them, is that there is little market demand. just becuase linux users want linux pda's doesn't mean that's a suffient market for electronics companies to provide them.

unless i'm mistaken, the efforts to port linux to various handhelds are the result of individual efforts. more information on linux handhelds can be found at: http://www.handhelds.org

JaseP

Palm may be switching its new line of PDA to embeded Linux,...
They are discovering that it is faster to write the user interface stuff that the whole OS, and embedix,... embeded Linux, is faster to get to deployment. It may be a year or two before we see these though...

Also, you can run Linux on certain Compaq iPAQs,... It requires a hack, but it can be done.

There is also the Yopy, a Linux PDA produced by Samsung in Korea. It's actually a great little machine, and in some respects, blows the Zaurus away.

By and far the most fertile ground for Linux based PDAs is in Asia, particularly Korea. It's only a matter of time before we see them here as well. You can get Asian units converted to US English by third parties.

Many new multi-function devices such as PDA-phones are being developed with Linux. However, all this movement doesn't mean that you can hack into the device easily.

pevelius

almost all ipaqs work with familiar linux. you can choose from at least two full-blown gui systems, gpe and opie.
http://gpe.handhelds.org/
http://opie.handhelds.org/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/

i have tried both (with familiar 0.72). they worked mostly well. 0.8 familiar with opie wouldn´t boot on my 3900, but it obviously can be solved.

installing linux on ipaq doesn´t involve "hacking" in any way. they come with very detailed installation instructions. basically you back up all your data with some tools, then install a new bootloader and finally update flash image. all installing is done via serial port and some terminal emulator (minicom). it´s quite easy after you have done it a few times.

so, it´s coming. what? linux on pda, of course

Gina

Like pevelius says, putting the familiar distribution on ipaq is not that hard to do. I did it myself & I'm still pretty much an amateur! I had an old (3650) ipaq with worn-out battery so it was definitely worth the risk. I have the Opie gui running on it & it's really very nice.

I have read that you CAN put a full-blown distro on an ipaq if you have a 1 GB microdrive. The distro is called intimate, I believe, & I think it behaves pretty similar to debian.

I do have a question for pevelius or anybody out there with lots of experience configuring familiar. I can't seem to get networking functional! I connect my ipaq through a usb cradle but can't tunnel through to the internet -- either to my mandrake installation or to my Windows XP (using the bahia driver).

Any suggestions on how this is done???

pevelius

http://mia.ece.uic.edu/~papers/WWW/L...ml#USB-NETWORK

i don´t remember if i did it with that instruction or some other. but i got it working with debian sarge quite easily by following instructions