Palm to go Linux

jetkins writes "The Melbourne Age reports that company officials announced Tuesday that Palm will move to a new Linux-based platform 'to help the company compete better.' The move was announced 'during a meeting with analysts in New York, where they also discussed the company's business strategy and refused to talk about recent rumors of a possible buyout.'"

About time...

[_PimpDaddy7_]

My Treo 650 does some real weird things sometimes.
My 650 will freeze for up to 20 seconds, at least once a day.

I have friends who own the Palm version of the 700 and these do some very weird things. They reboot themselves constantly, email is very flaky, syncing to Mac computers is so-so at best. Basically syncing is a crapshoot.

I find this to be a good thing and I hope the linux version will be a more stable OS than Palm.

Any cell phone that doesn't have me wishing to toss it through a window after 1 month of initial use, someone tell me, I'd gladly buy it.

I'd love to get a symbian phone but Verizon doesn't have it. I loathe Verizon. I was a t-mobile customer and I really miss the GSM phones. I think once my contract ends with Verizon I will go back to t-mobile or cingular.

Nowhere else for Palm to go...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

The beauty of Microsoft OS's is that it turns all the hardware vendors who run it into commodity vendors*. This is happening to Palm today as well: as Microsoft's handheld OS is run by more and more handhelds, the value of "Palm" devices and its brand name is also decreased. Apple won't let anyone license its proprietary OS, so Linux is the only major OS name (that means anything to consumers) left for Palm to pursue if they want to remain a viable (and independent) handheld producer.

* There would have been no cheap Linux today if Microsoft hadn't flattened/commoditized the computer hardware market by the start of the 1990's.

Sure

[brunes69]

All handhelds have free PDF readers available. Frankly - this is something you could have found out from a 5 second google query.

Re:So who owns what and who?

[tmasssey]

There's two 700 smartphones. The 700w, a Verizon Wireless exclusive, and the 700p. I've had 3 clients return the 700w's and get 680/700p's. I've had only a couple of them keep the 700w's.

I've used a 700p myself for nearly a year. Much more reliable than the 600p it replaced. I've been *very* happy with it...

Article has no information

[644bd346996]

TFA it somewhat ambiguous. It is hard to tell whether Palm, inc. announced that they are going to release a pda based on the Access Linux platform, or if they have gotten back into the software business and developed their own platform.

For those who don't know, several years ago Palm split into PalmOne, the hardware side, and PalmSource, the OS developers. Since then, PalmSource has been bought by Access Ltd, and PalmOne has renamed themselves Palm, Inc. PalmSource's PalmOS 6, aka "Cobalt", was never used in a production PDA. After PalmSource was bought by Access, it was announced that future PalmOS releases would be based on Linux, with binary compatibility for previous PalmOS apps.

Unfortunately, Palm, Inc.'s website doesn't mention anything about Linux in either the press release section or the Developer section. And Access released the Access Linux Platform 1.0 two months ago. TFA does say that Palm, Inc. will once again have control over their own OS. This seems to indicate that they have spurned the ALP. If that is the case, one has to wonder how they will offer backwards compatibility, given that the PalmOS IP is owned by Access. Perhaps the permanent license they acquired gives Palm the right to do this kind of thing.

On the other hand, I don't see how they would have any less control if they just used ALP, given that most of it is GPL, and the rest is the same backwards compatibility code that they will need anyways.

Re:Handhelds and PDF?

[Dr. Manhattan]

I have never owned a handheld or even touched one, but would like to know whether a basic handled to be used to read PDF documents downloaded from the internet is reasonable. I am concerned about fonts, battery life usability and durability.

Well, there's PalmPDF [metaviewsoft.de], which I've had reasonable success with on my Treo 650. PDFs contain their own fonts so that's not an issue, really. My Treo doesn't have a case and seems to be holding up pretty well, even after I've dropped it a few times (and my kids have dropped it a few more times). Works pretty well, though with only a 320x320 screen, there's only so much you can see at a time. You'd probably want one with a bigger screen (e.g. 320x480 ones exist), and as much RAM and as fast a processor as possible.

I make too many phone calls with it, but I use its PDA and viewing functions quite a bit every day, and battery life is fine. Don't think I've ever gone below 75% charge (I plug it in every night).

I can't say that I've worked with 200MB PDFs, though. I think ~10MB is the biggest I've messed with. And someone else will have to tackle Windows or Linux-based platforms. However, I've heard generally good things about the Nokia 770 - it's basically a small Linux box with an 800x480 screen...

Re:For me, Palm died when PalmOS went away

[644bd346996]

Palm is still mostly a PalmOS shop. They only introduced the first Windows Mobile smartphone (the 700w) in September 2005, and only two more windows models since then. All the PalmOS based products still support even the old 68k apps. It is hard to tell if the new Linux platform will support PalmOS apps, because Palm doesn't own PalmOS. However, if Palm, Inc. uses anything similar to the Access Linux Platform (developed by the owners of PalmOS), there will be GTK+ compatibility, which should satisfy quite a few hobbyists.

Article with more details

[Anonymous Coward]

From PalmInfocenter: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9351/palm-annou nces-new-linux-based-mobile-platform/ [palminfocenter.com]

Re:Great but....

[evil_Tak]

In short. Linux on a PDA is a huge success for Linux but is really no better for everyday linux users unless we get proprietry stuff like Tomtom, RealPlayer, Flash available for it (not completely unlikely).

You mean something like the Nokia N800 [nokiausa.com], which comes with Opera and Flash, works with a wide range of bluetooth GPS units, including Navicore [navicoretech.com] and TomTom, and has a freely available Rhapsody client [realnetworks.com]?

Re:Old News???

[AKAImBatman]

No, they DIDN'T! The article you linked to is about licensing of Garnet. Garnet is the current codename for the classic Palm OS that's been around since the stone ages. All this licenses is about is letting Palm Hardware pickup the source code where Palm Software (aka PalmSource) left off.

The BeOS-based Palm OS is called Cobalt, and is going nowhere fast.

Not the creation...the propogation...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Because somehow Microsoft doing this inspired Linus Torvalds to create a MINIX-like free kernel for research purposes? Or because Windows made x86 popular (rather than the other way around)? Yet I still don't even see how that would've mattered one way or the other to the creation of Linux.

The key word in my post was "cheap". Linus's little hobby may not have taken off it wasn't easy for college-age folks like me to buy the components for a cheap PC and run either Linux or Windows on it in the early 1990s. A lot of the people who helped Linux (and its programs) get going couldn't afford a second PC, or were happy a second PC was cheap when they did get one.

So...although Windows may not have helped the creation of Linux as a hobby, it certainly helped make Linux accessible to more people by making PC hardware cheap.

Let me know if you need more help...

Re:Are we going to be able to see the source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you consider the BSD license Free. Many, including myself, do not.

Re:Old News???

[Lobo]

Palm OS is Garnet.
There is no Cobalt (not that ever saw the light of day anyhow). Cobalt was supposed to be Linux based, not BeOS.
Access killed the Cobalt concept when they started developing their own ALP (Access Linux Platform).

Re:Old News???

[AKAImBatman]

Cobalt was supposed to be Linux based, not BeOS.

I forgot to mention: This is blatently incorrect. Cobalt was BeOS based. ALP is Linux based. Actually, to be specific, Cobalt had a new microkernel that was combined with various BeOS multimedia technologies in order to produce the end product.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php/6148/Interview-Pal mSources-George-Hoffman-on-PalmOS-6-Cobalt/page2/ [osnews.com]

Re:Old News???

[AKAImBatman]

There is no BeOS-based Palm Software. There should have been, but they never released it.

Why does everyone keep repeating this? Cobalt was released as Palm OS 6.x [palminfocenter.com] and was available for licensing. The problem was that no Palm manufacturers licensed Cobalt for use in their devices. The lack of devices pretty much killed Palm OS 6 before consumers ever had a chance to evaluate it.

For those of you unaware, the reason for this dichotomy is because Palm Inc got tired of funding Palm OS and thus spun off PalmSource as a separate company. PalmSource created and released Cobalt, but they were not in a position to create any hardware for it. Palm Inc's failure to produce any hardware for Cobalt resulted in the other Palm manufacturers sticking with the classic Palm OS 5. (aka Garnet) PalmSource eventually went under and was acquired by ACCESS, a Japanese embedded software company.

Re:Old News???

[metalcoat]

http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6175171.html?part= rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news [com.com]

Just Today.

Linux OS by the end of the year. Maybe they are serious.

Re:Old News???

[zullnero]

They do have the rights to call their new OS PalmOS, they bought the rights back. Access has ALP, which will probably be marketed at third party competitors. Palm has been developing their Palm/Linux OS now for at least 24 months or so. I went to the last Palmsource before everything spun every which way (when they were still trying to get people to license Cobalt), and I actually saw a preview of the next Palm/Linux OS. Strangely enough, it was demoed by a PALM employee, and not a PALMSOURCE employee (back when the company was Palm=Hardware, Palmsource=Software). Since then, I have been in touch with people, I've visited Palm's headquarters, and every time I've come away thinking "wow, these guys are really hiring a lot of engineers, I could swear they've just added 50 more cubicles to this maze". It all makes sense and there's quite a rundown on Palminfocenter.