I want to try getting a cellphone with a Linux OS (obviously) which has an Internet connection, and can perform decent tasks and doesn't cost much. I'm thinking about around 200$ (sorry, I'm not used to American currency but I want a relatively cheap one).

My real question is, would it be a good idea to hang onto my old crappy (but still, operational) phone to wait for a phone which can perform the above tasks? There are a couple of phones which come rather close to what I was thinking about, but they are all way too expensive. I'm not sure about the iPhone.

I've never been interested in cellphones before I got into Linux so I though I'd ask; buy now or wait for technology to advance a little more?

p.s. is there a cellphone where you can use access a shell or a terminal? or is that just a pointless idea I have?

You can look into openmoko, but you pretty much have to configure everything by hand. It uses GSM phone service. So with that said, I'd keep the old phone as a backup in case you brick the Linux one.

Depends - if you want to access another box there's putty.

To access the OS itself via terminal the only one I read about was android (me thinks) but I dunno what you can do there from the terminal (was about an exploit).

Wouldn't get a openmoko at this point - waayyyy too expensive.

[QUOTE=baldurpet;3398249]I want to try getting a cellphone with a Linux OS (obviously) which has an Internet connection, and can perform decent tasks and doesn't cost much. I'm thinking about around 200$ (sorry, I'm not used to American currency but I want a relatively cheap one).

Etc.

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Wait until prices come down some more, which will be after Valentine's day gifting is done. Then the retailers will be hurting and wanting to sell things before the first quarter is over. Spend your time researching the various models and don't be afraid to send an e-mail to the manufacturers asking them what they have/will have in the area of linux and ssh etc. The worst they can do is tell you that they won't tell you.

I can can access my puter at home via ssh with my 3g iphone, it's pretty sweet.

Sweet indeed I wouldn't even know how to do that with a regular computer (Linux/power user newbie, mind you). How would you do that? I'm thinking about making a server in a month or so, is that related?

Valentine's day isn't as big of a deal here as it is in the States, so nothing really gets much cheaper when the whole Valentine's fuzz has blown over. Asking around at forums is always very helpful, and even though I've never really asked any company for help I doubt they'd give me better or less biased answers than I'd get from Internet forums or just Wikipedia?

I'm still looking for a phone that has an OS which is more like a normal computer OS, so the iPhone doesn't really appeal to me. I've still heard that it's supposedly very good.

You get ssh installed and running on the box and putty (might be other apps out there) on the cell.Thats for symbian - dunno about other cell OS's.