Hi!

Let's suppose that we have a phone with an LCD display and an ARM CPU. Do you think it is possible to install a minimal linux OS on it? I am thinking on something like busybox based or something.
If not an a general phone, do you think, we could do that with a phone that released it's specs? Do you know any phone like that?
Crazy idea, maybe, but if it works, this is the best low-cost single board computer out there.

Dan

It takes a lot of work, time, and skill to port a full Linux OS to an embedded device like a cell phone; and that is assuming perfect conditions. You usually would want to make sure that the target platform will have some tangible benefit running Linux, and I just don't see that for a cell phone. It's not like you can really do much but place calls with it.

I would also have to question the idea that this would be the cheapest SBC available. I don't know about anyone else, but the last 2 or 3 phones I have had cost over $300. Even then, none of them had the kind of power you would need to run a practical OS. Trying to run Linux on the low-end phones that they give away with new contracts would be a grand waste of time. You could be better off getting a Zaurus (you can get a SL-5500 for ~$130 on eBay) that is going to be a lot more practical of a platform for mobile computing.

If you really want Linux on a cheap phone, you might want to keep your eye on OpenMoko.

Well... I ported Ruby for OpenMoko. 3.1MB all together

Anyway.. The reason why I want to run linux on a cell phone is because it is the cheapest SBC with an LCD display. (^_^) And the other reason is because I want to build a panel into the wall of my bedroom with which I can control the circuits.
The power should now be a problem because a busybox based minimal distro can be fit in 1MB that can be run by anything. 33MHz is more than enough.

BTW... I saw SBCs for about 130 dollars on embeddedarm.com. They are crazy cool just too expensive.

Dan