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Handhelds Hardware

Linux PDAs in the Field 71

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sometimes-little-is-better dept.
BorrisYeltsin writes " A story here at InformationWeek about a guy who has equipped his 3500 feild engineers using the new Agenda VR3 palmtop's. It brings up an interesting issue about the Sharp Linux PDA and how the different libraries and API's will cause problems for developers." Having now seen the iPaq running Linux, KDE, and even Konqueror, I now believe its possible.
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Linux PDA's in the Field More

Linux PDA's in the Field

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  • Re:Edit, Edit, Edit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Read for content, not for spelling. If spelling and grammar are the only points you can argue with, why bother?
  • Note that the Tao-group [tao-group.com] Intent /amiga architecture is probably technologically the best of the bunch - except for not being Open Source :-(.

    It's like Java done right, and is light years ahead of .NOT. - it's a language-independent VM, with the VM processor being an idealised infinite-register machine, which can be algorthmically optimised for anything from cruddy register-starved x86 platforms, to pure stack processors, to RISC and VLIW machines.

    ~Why am I telling you this? Because, the Japanese electronics giants have the power to force the Tao system through as the global standard for
    network-enabled PDAs. It's a proper (sun certified!) superset of Java too, as well as running atop linux (and others, including wince and bare x86 metal). And the Amiga media processing APIs are
    very, very powerful.

    See [tao-group.com]
    this press release (abstract below)

    Global 'Open Contents Platform Association' To Be Launched
    World's leading consumer electronics firms push to create premium contents platform standard

    Tokyo, Japan July 13th, 2001: Sharp, JVC, Kyocera and the Tao Group today announce the launch of the Open Contents Platform Association (OCPA).

    This move, initiated by Japan's consumer electronics giants, will promote the global standardization of the inte nt® media platform as a core on home and mobile connected devices, such as PDAs, phones, web tablets, digital cameras and smart phones.

    The OCPA is a response to the proliferation of wired and wireless devices with a requirement from carriers and broadcasters to deliver premium contents to users. This trend of more devices has pushed up development costs and increased application and device time to market - an inevitable consequence when developing divergent software implementations on every new product.

    The need for a flexible, open environment has become paramount. By standardizing around Tao's open and pluggable platform, OCPA manufacturers and developers will create powerful and differentiated products, at the lowest cost and in the shortest possible time, capable of running the kind of premium services required by operators and broadcasters.


    I am also telling you this because we need a GPL
    clone pretty damn quickly! (Note that it will be patent encumbered in the US, so we'll have to develop it in Europe.)
  • Some people would say that Open source folk already have an adequate VM architecture, where their "binaries" are source code, their VM is gcc+posixy system, and the compiled binaries are just a system-spcific artifact. :-)

    What I really mean is that VMs like Java and .NET and Tao are really only necessary for acheiving both platform indepedence and the possibility of semi-enforceable proprietary binary distribution.

    See BSD "Ports" system for Open Source's best VM architecture, with a degree of optimisation that even the best "idealised infinite register virtual processor" can only dream of. I only wish there was a linux distro with the "ports" system. (I don't like the BSD kernel and most of its userspace, but "Ports" rocks!)

  • Re:Edit, Edit, Edit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Because he's not a mechanic, a restaurant owner or a golfer. He's a self-proclaimed journalist, who obviously cares so little about his job, that he apparently takes no step to improve himself or his writing. He's fulfilled the Peter Principle early in life.

    And it's not an infrequent thing with CmdrTaco. It's almost every article.

  • Re:Developing Standards Under Linux (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Word isn't evil because its a Microsoft Word Processor. Its evil because it uses a proprietary file format that is accepted in the business world. Linux hand helds would be just as propreitary if they closed their standards to corporations (like Microsoft) when, and if, they become the defacto standard.

    That's not exactly why it's evil -- it's evil because MS will tell you that they documented the format, but in fact following their documentation makes it impossible to properly support many files generated by Word.

    In short, they tell you it's open when it's not. Closed formats and proprietary software are fine if and only if you *know* you're choosing them.

  • Re:Developing Standards Under Linux (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.btinternet.com/~shaheedhaque/generator_ wword8.htm [btinternet.com]
    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q 290/9/58.ASP [microsoft.com]

    I'm curious at what you get if you ask Microsoft (second link)...

  • Quite true, and as an Amiga developer, I've made the same point - entirely Open Source solutions can nearly pull what Tao/Amiga are doing.

    However, two important notes must be made.

    The first is that binary code - and to a greater extent, Tao's portable binary code - is a form of compression. Tao's binaries are particularly tight (moreso than native code!), such that, for many applications, the initial translation delay is balanced by a decrease in media-access overhead. Of course, you do have to have your translator resident, but the translator itself is small, so it doesn't add much at boot time - sort of like loading gzipped ELF support into the kernel, I suppose. [I'm mainly a BSD user and not familiar with the standard ELF format and its implications - Does such a beast already exist in Linux?]

    The second is that certain forms of software- entertainment software, mainly, meaning games- aren't yet ready to weather a change to an Open Source model. Id seems to have the best idea- sell the game commercially, and once it's no longer leading-edge, release the source to allow advances to the art of gaming (or a million lame FPS variants, as the case may be)... Look to companies like Loki and Hyperion to see how much effort must be put into porting this software. The Amiga solution offers a cure for this- games written to the VP level will be highly portable, and can feature optimizations for various platforms (meaning they can be extended to take advantage of Altivec on PPC, 3DNow! on AMD, SSE2? on Intel, and potentially even farm things out to coprocessors in interesting ways)... It's the best of all worlds, when it comes to commercial gaming. [My thoughts here- anyone who hopes to make enough to recoup development costs, yet wants to release their game as Open Source, is going to be taking pains to make sure the code isn't that easily available/easily recyclable anyway... If they have any business sense, of course. If it's easily compiled, they won't make a buck, and will quickly fold. :P]

    So, while the market for Amiga-type solutions may be specious, given the existence of Linux and NetBSD, it does provide the opportunity for Open and Closed source to coexist more happily, and may provide some impetus for more interesting development in the hardware scene. [Does the released Quake source run on non-x86? I've heard there's a lot of inlined assembler... So much for getting l33t FPS on your Alpha...]

    It's also worthwhile, IMHO, because recompiling on small, underpowered devices can be painful, even if the opportunity presents itself. Sometimes, you just want the binary, plain and simple. [Now, if someone could rig up BSD ports for quick cross-compilation, I'd wet my pants in happiness- I could compile everything on the FreeBSD Athlon, and dump it to an OpenBSD 486/NetBSD iMac - this can already be done, but AFAIK it's not a highly automated ports feature, and I'm the sort of peon who hasn't gotten up to writing makefiles yet.]

    Of course, Amiga is also out to provide a lithe and stable end-user OS; it might be closed, but it's another option for your parents- and something new for Open Source to try to emulate, in the manner in which Gnome [riffs|rips] off MacOS and KDE merges up consumer interfaces (OS/2, Windows, MacOS) with the CDE. C'mon guys- it really *does* make a great, extensible solution for a palmtop... and how are you going to fit ports on yours, anyway? [Got $300 for a Microdrive? I don't! :)]

  • Read The article, dumbass (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15, 2001 @08:42AM (#84025)
    Nowhere in the article does it say that ths gentleman equiped his people with Agenda VR3s.

    In fact, it quite cleary states the he used:

    "Symbol Technologies Inc.'s model 2700 PDA and a custom port from Linux provider Red Hat Inc. formed the basis of the platform."

    Doesn't anyone read the articles anymore?

    Or do you just let people post anything they want?

  • The beauty of the Agenda is that when you ssh into it, it is basically like sshing into a Linux box. Complete with Linuxy tools, and a Linux development environment. The Psion might be a cool machine, but there is almost certainly a learning curve that must be tackled before you can develop for it. With the Agenda Linux developers already have all the knowledge they need to be productive immediately (well, you might want to learn FLTK, but how long is that likely to take). With the Psion being effectively dead, there is little point in learning their development tools and API, but even if the Psion weren't a dead end there is more to the idea of handheld Linux machines than "bragging rights."

    I think that Linux is cool running on my desktop computer. The idea of being able to carry around a Linux box wherever I go sounds incredibly useful, and the idea of developing PDA applications without having to learn another possibly dead end API is equally appealing. So, while I am sure that your Psion is a nifty gizmo, I am not interested in it.

  • 24 MiBs in total, eh?

    If the US Gov. had 24 Men in Black running Linux back in 1947, I bet no one would have heard about any UFOs...
    --
    Niklas Nordebo | niklas at nordebo.com
  • Sorry to say, but piracy has been around for thousands of years. The whole Napster thing didn't "innovate" the concept of theft.

  • Re:Handhelds need to just "work" (Score:3)

    by Cato ( 8296 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @10:34AM (#84029)
    Unfortunately Palm devices do crash, and so do WinCE devices by all accounts. I've been using a Palm and more recently a Handspring for some years, and I like the system as a whole, but the occasional crashes are annoying. Once I even had a crash a minute or two after an earlier crash... The Palm OS is very similar to MacOS (pre MacOS X) or Windows 3.x - applications have to hand back the CPU to the OS (cooperative multi-tasking), so it's very easy for a bad app to mess things up. In fact it's worse than Win 3.x, because the in-memory state is still there after a crash, so you can sometimes get into a state where you have to hard-reset (i.e. lose all memory state).

    The Palm concept and applications are great, but the OS is really quite poor and should have been replaced a while back. The OS's lack of true multi-tasking is one reason why WinCE has done quite well in companies that want wireless applications.
  • So you are damn freeloader , aren't you?

    Not at all. I want something that isn't locked into a single companies development efforts. If Agenda were to go belly-up today (or sometime in the near future), the product would continue to evolve because anyone is able to extend the software on the platform. I've been watching the agenda-dev list and I can already see the power of open-source improving the product.

    -- PhoneBoy

  • The summary makes it sound as if the company outfitted their workforce with Agenda VR3s. What it really says is that they had a custom solution developed because, at that time, the Agendas weren't available yet.

    I'm really looking forward to getting my Agenda VR3 since, yes, I care that it's Linux. It doesn't sound like it's ready to be a Palm-replacement from all the reviews, but hey, I just want to be able to ssh to/from the sucker and take advantage of the wonderful open-source community.

    Agenda's backend order processing leaves a bit to be desired as I ordered a developer unit last week and I have yet to hear when they're going to ship it (and yes, I did call them about this).

    -- PhoneBoy
  • It's currently sold as a machine with 16 MiB flash and 8 MiB RAM.

    At least in Germany.

  • Symbol 2700 (Score:3)

    by Anm ( 18575 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @12:30PM (#84033)
    Karma whoring: Here's the URL: http://www.symbol.com/products/mobile_computers/mo bile_ce_ppt2700.html [symbol.com]
  • It happens to be alot better suited for many tasks than Windows. Shrug. I use/develop on it more than any other OS. YMMV.

    BTW. Getting useful "newbie" information from Slashdot is pretty unlikely, especially if you aren't a programmer to begin with. My advice: don't worry about it; you need it about as much as a car salesman needs a laser guided mitre box.
  • X11 will be fine when PDAs come with built in microdrives. Until then, it is just too much flash to waste - even on a 32 Meg ipaq. I don't know why you would want multiple toolkits. Just leads to massive memory wastage.

    Qt/E is useful for now while there is not enough storage. QPE could easily be transitioned to QT/x11 when there is.

    Rob

  • Well I'm using the more powerful iPaq.
    I don't run X on it, because X is a waste
    of resources. Sorry, but X just is too big
    currently.

    You just need a more powerful machine to run X.

    PS. The agenda is not a good machine - I can't believe how many people bought it just because it runs linux by default...
  • Read the article. The guy used 3500 Symbol hardware with a Red Hat-based system. The Agenda was not available for that project.
  • Probably thinking of Qt Palmtop [sourceforge.net] with Konqueror [konqueror.org]
  • Right now, the web is littered with references to tablet computer devices that apparently aren't going to see the light of day, or will be hopelessly obsolescent by the time they do. (Epods' cool but CE-crippled pad is gone, and I don't suppose anyone's actually *seen* an FIC Aqua or ProView iWeb in the real world? See http://netappliances.about.com/cs/padstablets/inde x.htm?once=true& for a run-down of what's out there...)

    It came as a pleasant surprise then, to see those denizens of LCD affordability at ViewSonic take on this market with a choice of CE-based (but possibly hackable) or "vanilla x86" pad/tablet computers: http://www.viewsonic.com/productwizard/superpda_ta bletpc.htm (warning: this site will wedge all your netscape windows momentarily while it loads, but they'll respond again once it's all there.)

    It would be nice to see some real hackable tablet hardware that could jump-start the next wave of innovation in really personal computing, bridging the gap between PDAs and PCs.
  • Field is misspelled as "feild" as of 06:00EST July 15.

    Don't mod me down please, just pointing it out.

  • Cool! I use CE too, as my message stated. Thanks for the link.

    "Even if you are on the right track, you'll
    get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers

  • Linux on iPAQ - One Geek's Opinion (Score:4)

    by hbo ( 62590 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @11:53AM (#84042) Homepage
    I'm writing this on my iPAQ 3650 waiting to see a doctor at a clinic in Santa Cruz CA. I'm on the net with a Merlin Ricochet modem. Unfortunately, I dumped Linux last night and reloaded CE because support for the new dual PCMCIA sleeve isn't in the stable HH release yet. (This is unfortunate not only for philosophical reasons, but because the "home" button in Pocket IE is right below the soft keyboard's space bar. This means I lose everything between my last preview and whenever I hit "home" by mistake periodically.) My impression of the various Linux distros for the iPAQ is that they are almost unbearably cool, but aren't ready for naive user primetime. Stupid button placement notwithstanding, WinCE is a lot easier to use than any of the handheld Linux platforms I've tried. Of course, those linuces weren't intended as general-use systems, but as research platforms.

    On the flipside, it's an ironic fact that there's more software available for the iPAQ on Linux than on CE, due to the explosion in Linux over recent years and the hard work and dedication of volunteers, particularly those at handhelds.org in this case. For example, AFAIK, there's no MAME port for CE, but xmame works (with some difficulty) on the Intimate iPAQ distro.

    I'm sure that lots of folks are interested in usability for mobile Linux solutions. After stability, I think usability is critical to commercial success in the handheld PDA market. Developers might want to take a clue from Palm's success, and "dumb down" their UI's so they are simpler to use. Microsoft learned that lesson with CE. 3.0 is much simpler than it's predecessors.

    For myself, I'll keep buying the latest hardware and loading the (almost) latest Linux for it because I can, and because it's fun. But my Mother won't get anywhere near an iPAQ running Linux except when looking over my shoulder while I run my latest mame rom. 8)

    "Even if you are on the right track, you'll
    get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers

  • Users Don't Care, Developers Care!

    Over the years I've learned a lot of different OS's. It took a lot of time. Now I've got Linux everywhere, from my Agenda to my servers. Now I can spend more time writing stuff, and less time learning obscure OS's.

    I'm working to make my Agenda talk to my Lego Mindstorms, but other developers are working on usefull stuff.

  • Amen. When they get to 512M memory and the writing gets easier, I'll buy one. Until then, I have a DayTimer and a pencil with soft lead. All is good. I have seen some great applications at Virginia Tech involving satellite stations that transmit insect data collected from farms but I don't need that for my 8 tomato plants.
  • We use PDA's here [sce.com] for log taking and data taking in the field, with logic in the PDA to notify the us about out of spec items, bad data, immediate action requirements based on these, etc... VERY useful to us. And remote access to the uploaded data is useful to all kinds of other people (maintenance, engineering, etc) here. Ours don't use Linux though, I was only replying to the "never had the need" comment.

  • I think you should have at the top of your list:
    --PDA's can include intelligent code logic to give you situation specific information. E.g, the doctor who wishes to prescribe medication and the PDA says "BUZZZZ - drug interaction danger, patient XX is also taking medication YY and this conflicts with your last entry." The point here is PDA's have a CPU and paper does not. Much of course depends on the talent and effort put into the software to be used.

  • to evaluate the unit as a field service diagnosis tool. Since we spend a lot of time trying to fix broken networks which are populated mostly by MS operating systems, it would be nice to be able to carry a PDA that we can just plug into the LAN with the sorts of tools Linux has available for diagnosis.

    Unfortunately, there is no way currently to connect ethernet to the Agenda. As soon as there is we will implement it and evaluate further.

    In the meantime, the Agenda is about as good as any PDA for the standard PDA functions.

  • Read the damn article! (Score:5)

    by szcx ( 81006 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @09:04AM (#84048)
    It is not an Agenda. Jesus.

    The only problem was that there was no commercially available Linux PDA in June 2000, when Richards started the project. Sun solved that problem by outsourcing hardware and software development to other companies. Symbol Technologies Inc.'s model 2700 PDA and a custom port from Linux provider Red Hat Inc. formed the basis of the platform.
  • What I would like to have on these PDA's is a "real" USB port, like on my PC, to which I can connect devices, like digital cameras, etc.

    Does anyone know if this is possible? Or are they all just "dumb" USB devices?

    Primarily I want to connect my camera to it. Imagine having Gimp on it as well! That would be cool.
  • Interesting you mention that. My father is a psychiatrist and he carries around huge databases of psychoactive drugs on his palm. He couldn't live without it.

  • PDA advantages (Score:4)

    by Ukab the Great ( 87152 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @12:48PM (#84051)
    The advantage of a PDA:

    --You can instantly call forth a date or number without flipping tons of pages to get at it.

    --It has a backlight. Useful for looking up directions at night, and also if you're using the bathroom and the power goes out (happened to me. I admit it).

    --PDA's are often smaller than a paper organizer, but are able to provide much more detailed information. You can compress an amount of information that would fill 100 paper organizers into something that fits into your pocket

    --The ability to save a copy of your information in a safe location. True, if you back up your Palm and then lose it, you're out $150. But for some people, losing $150 is not half as bad as losing the phone number of a client with a million dollar contract, which could happen if they use paper (which can't be backed up--easily).

    But you're right that there are some geeks who are more interested in PDA's as cool technology promoting such and such OS than as tools for doing valuable work. If linux PDA companies cater to the first group and not the second (which is what they've been doing) and ignore usability issues (which they've constantly been doing) linux will never become a mainstream PDA OS. A linux PDA is destined and damned to failure. A PDA that just happens to use linux, that might have a pretty good shot.

  • PDA's and Linux, Users Dont Care (Score:4)

    by quakeaddict ( 94195 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @09:10AM (#84052)
    The average PDA user, even more so than the average PC user, willc are less what OS is inside as long as they can organize themselves reasonably well, and connect to the office internet conveniently.

    I think thats why the Palm OS has been so successful. Its simplicty over features, although with the recent iPaq success that might start to change. The iPaqs are not simple, but feature rich (and cost as much as a reasonably sized pc these days).

  • And the biggest threat to them is people crafting oddball APIs because they somehow believe that these little handhelds can't run the desktop APIs. There is no need.
    For unattended applications like data logging, you need to be able to turn the machine off under program control and have it turn back on at a scheduled time. You also need to be able to turn the backlight on and off under program control.

    There is no standard Unix API for telling the system how fast you need the CPU to run, or that you don't need any CPU cycles for the next four hours.

  • when it was first run in InformationWeek [informationweek.com], but as always, the editors at slashdot know best:

    2001-04-09 21:20:02 Sun using Linux handheld (articles,news) (rejected)

    --

  • Just out of curiousity, where exactly is the fun in retarded trolls?
  • but hey, I just want to be able to ssh to/from the sucker and take advantage of the wonderful open-source community.

    It seems to me that there are more effective ways of doing this on a PDA, and you even get a full-fledged PDA with it! Psion can do SSH, IIRC. But then again, you wouldn't have the ever-coveted Linux on a PDA bragging rights. Hmmm.

  • It is in principle great to have X so you can use different toolkits and do remote apps, but these aren't practical features for a PDA.

    Multiple toolkits on a desktop are possible [and annoying] but on a small device they are a waste of resources and don't satisfy the more urgent need for consistent interfaces.

    There is already plenty of fragmentation on PDAs especially if you ignore the presence of X.

    vr3: fltk
    pocketpc: java awt
    familiar: whatever, but "salamander" sounds like it leans toward evas as a canvas (i wonder about the toolkit...)
    intimate: whatever, but you currently need a microdrive so we're not talking about a PDA any more

    brad
  • to have a nifty Linux PDA mp3 player

    aztek: the ultimate man

  • There is a Linux for Psion project see here [sourceforge.net]
  • Asking why Linux is better is a little like asking why breathing oxygen is better than breathing methane. Linux has so much going for it it's tough to even imagine using anything else. Some of it may be chauvinism, but Linux hardly needs chauvinistic support. It just needs pragmatic support, and computer users are some of the most pragmatic people around.
    Here [linuxlinks.com] are ten listed reasons why Linux is better than commerical OSes. Here [google.com] is a well-written article on the subject.
    Perhaps the most pragmatic reason is that Linux is the cheapest OS in existence. You can find the latest release free for the taking on many servers worldwide. The time and the technical skills needed to actually make this option work are prohibitive, however, and few people will actually do it. For the rest of us, plenty of CDs are sold (or given away with big, useful instruction manuals (hey, that's how I got Red Hat 7.1!)) for under a hundred bucks. These CDs, called 'distros', or distributions, are made by various corporations, like Red Hat, Caldera, Slackware, Debain, etc. and come loaded with thousands of dollars worth of software. They also come with friendly, graphical installation programs that can get even the rankest of newbies started with Linux.
    Once you get Linux going, there is a plethora of free software online. The GNU's Not Unix project [gnu.org] is the best-known source, but you can find thousands with a simple Google [google.com] search. Most Linux software, and Linux itself, is free in two senses: Free beer and Free speech. Free speech? Yes. Free in that sense means you can look at the source code (it is Open Source, in other words) and modify it to your whims. It is liberated software, software anyone can modify, learn from, change, and improve.
    That brings me to my next point. Linux is the most stable OS in the world. Programs can crash and burn, scream and die, and just plain quit and Linux soldiers on. That's why it's used in servers. Saves thousands, if not millions, in maintnence costs, compared to Microsoft products (the Blue Screen Of Death can be expensive if the server that handles financial transactions crashes). It's stable because it has an army of people the world over fixing what breaks. How many software companies can claim that skilled programmers volunteered their time to make sure their operating system works on every hardware imaginable? None. Only Linux, the operating system used by the people who write it and written by the people who use it.
    That brings me to my last point (promise! :-)). Linux is a state of mind for many people. It is a declaration of independence from the closed model of software development. It is a great big 'up yours' to the bloated, insecure, crash-prone shit the Big Two (Microsoft and Macintosh) foist on the world. Eric Raymond wrote a book on the Linux Revolution called The Cathedral and the Bazaar [tuxedo.org], pointing up the superiority of the open development model (the Bazaar) over the closed development system (the Cathedral) by following one of the many successful open development projects, fetchmail. Linux is a community of people who want to make the best software for everyone. It can give you the best technical support because the guy who wrote the program you're having trouble with is probably reachable. And if not, reams of people who helped him fix bugs are. Your problems might influence the next version of the software, in fact. Because Linux is open, anything can happen. Microsoft doesn't stand a chance. :-)
  • I use a computer at work, so I've never personally paid for the Windows OS that runs my computer, either. So what's your point? "It's free, therefore it's better?" Thats's the same rationale used for stealing copyrighted music with the help of Napster and Gnutella. "I CAN download the music for free, therefore it's alright." I don't agree.

    I buy my computers. And software. I like getting a good deal for my money. Linux is that good deal. Windows is not.

    Why shouldn't Microsoft (or any software vendor) be paid for the products they produce?

    They should be paid by those who choose to use their software. Nobody is losing out because numerous people worldwide made the choice to make Linux free.

    Why is it evil to make a profit?

    It isn't.

    Have you ever heard the phrase, "There's no such thing as a free lunch?" I believe it.

    Even to the point of discounting evidence to the contrary?

    If I buy into the Linux philospohy, I'll have to PAY in terms of the time I spend learning how to install it first; then I'll have to hunt for the FREE software and install it; then I'll have to learn how to USE the software and hope it does what I want it to do. Finally, if/when something goes wrong, I'll either have to teach myself how to change the code or rely on the good intentions of strangers to fix my problems in their own good time, with NO guarantee whatsoever.

    And if you buy a Microsoft product, you'll have to SPEND ~$100 at least, SPEND time learning to use it, SPEND time staring at error messages and BSODs (Blue Screens Of Death), SPEND time you should be working fixing those bugs, and HOPE you can get an answer out of Microsoft Tech Support, when there is NO guarantee you'll be able to get through to a helpful person. No thanks. I'd rather use something someone took pride in making work and still maintains because he/she wants to.

    Ah, the not-so-subtle insult hurled at non-Linux users. If you're not using Linux, you're a rank newbie, right? In other words, you're an idiot if you're not using Linux. Only the smartest people use Linux. Yada-yada-yada.

    Sorry, no. I meant the exact opposite. Linux is becomig increasingly newbie-friendly, in fact, as those graphical setup interfaces prove.

    Then it ISN'T "free," is it? My time is more valuable to me than the cost involved in purchasing a Windows OS. Why should I spend countless hours finding a "free" downloadable Linux OS, only to find out that I'm going to have to spend countless hours learning how to install and actually USE it?

    It's as free as you want it to be. If you decide your time is more important, go ahead and buy a distro. That's what I did. If you're short on cash, go online and learn something and then find a download site (not too hard if you can use Google), then spend some time loading it and configuring it. Simple as that.

    Don't understand the "free beer" reference. But, again, I have no need or desire to look at the source code. I don't want to create a better operating system; I just want to use one that will perform certain tasks reasonably well. Windows does that quite nicely. It seems to me that you are captivated by the idea that Linux is FREE and FREE and did I mention that Linux is FREE?
  • Okay, I can accept you if you can accept me. I'm tolerant. But I just want to clear up my own image.

    For one thing, I'm not a Liberal . I'm a Libertarian, which means I'm right of center on economic issues, but I support individual rights more than either major political party. I think Clinton and Gore are both assholes who corrupted their respective offices and should never have been elected, let alone re-elected. I think people should have the right to make a living without 'environmentalists' (read: nutballs) wrapping chains around trees to kill them and living in trees daring them to commit homicide. Protecting the environment does not involve putting people in harm's way. I'm pro-choice, pro-seperation of church and state, anti-welfare, and pro-flat tax. I think the DMCA is anti-Constitutional in that it spits on the fundamental freedoms the Constitution guarantees.

    Okay, are you still with me? Good. That was a hell of a rant. Sorry. :-)

    Now, more about why I like Linux. I'm more than willing to learn a complex system if it makes my life easier. And that is what Linux promises: It isn't the easiest thing in the world to learn, but the investment of my time is paid off thousandfold whenever I have to, say, delete massive amounts of files with a certain kind of name in a directory. Say what you will about 'intuitiveness' and 'ease of learning', being able to pound a few keys and do something that would have taken hours on a GUI-centric system is a highly useful feature. And with the piping command I can link features in ways that do rather complex tasks (like searching for all files that match a certain type, convert them into a different type, and compress them into one file, for example). With cron, I can automate complex tasks so they're done on the second Tuesday of every other month, for example. I can do all that using simple, powerful commands that sacrifice a little intutitiveness for sheer useability. A good tradeoff, in my book.

    I can give you something to read as a parting shot as well. In the beginning was the command line... [spack.org] is a useful, yet concise, overview of not only the history of computing, but the philosophies of different operating systems and groups. It's worth a read, and will hopefully get you thinking about computers in very different ways.

    Microsoft has some advantages. So does authoritarian government. It simply isn't for me. Just for your edification, The New Linux Myth Dispeller. [eruditum.org] If you want to be anti-Linux, be anti-Linux for the right reasons, and don't spread BS. (Not that you did.) It doesn't help your position.

    Well, it's been interesting debating with you. Neither one of us has convinced the other, but I don't think either one of us expected to. I guess I'll be happily piping commands and adding to my crontab while you keep your NT machine running, and we'll just take divergent roads. Good luck keeping NT functional, by the way. :-)
  • i'm writing this (just for the hell of it) inside the Charon web browser under inferno [vitanuova.com] on an Ipaq. i'm running a couple of shell windows & i've browsed around this thread, and the memory highwatermark reads approx 6MB.

    low memory usage isn't the coolest thing about it, though... currently i'm not using any local flash storage; everything is being dragged across via the wavelan card. that includes not only files, but even the network interface [vitanuova.com]!

    everything (apart from the itsy bitsy screen) is exactly the same as any other inferno installation... and even though i haven't turned on JIT compilation, it's highly responsive and nicely nippy.

    forget java, which is fundamentally memory hungry and bloated... inferno makes it incredibly easy to do things which are hard (or impossible) under other platforms.

    now there's just the question of how best to use these funny little devices. typing on this wee sw kbd ain't the easiest, long term! .

  • Palm's graffiti, while not real handwriting recognition, works great. Once you learn it, you can write very quickly. All the handhelds have really improved on this front in the last 2 years or so.

  • Re:Handhelds need to just "work" (Score:3)

    by jchristopher ( 198929 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @10:40AM (#84065)
    Of course, I'm generalizing. Every device has it's flaws and can be crashed by bad programming, whatever.

    I think it's far to say, though, that for the vast majority of people, Palm works, correctly, day in and day out. Especially more so for the many users who stick with the built in address book, etc., and never install 3rd party software.

    Don't get me started on WinCE. We have 2 devices at work, and nothing but trouble. Twice we've lost all the data in them because the battery dies so quickly if you don't cradle them. (These are the color iPaq that came out about a 1 year ago). For some reason, the sync software will just crap out for no reason, etc. Nothing but trouble.

    Anyway, back to my original question - for anyone using a Linux based PDA, how would you compare the ease of use, reliability, etc. to the Palm or WinCE platform? No one is denying it's powerful to be able to SSH to your handheld, but I am wondering if they've got the UI refined to the point where it's good for a non-techie.

  • Handhelds need to just "work" (Score:4)

    by jchristopher ( 198929 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @10:10AM (#84066)
    One of the things that's nice about the Palm platform is that everything just "works". That makes them simple to develop for, and simple to use. When the user installs a program, it just works. Doesn't fail to compile, doesn't crash, etc.

    Will a Linux PDA just "work"? Or will they need a tech back at the office to troubleshoot when things go wrong? Most PDA users are not the type to compile software, etc.

  • you mean ROM, right?

    Jaysyn
  • Graffiti is better than real handwriting recognition. It takes about two days of use to learn Graffiti, which is shorter than it would take for me to remember my own handwriting. ;-)

  • He can spell it however he likes, but BorrisYeltsin spells it with two....

    BorrisYeltsin

  • Disagree with you. In our developed countries, we are supposed to be able to write correctly at the age of 12 at max. Whenever I read badly written text from someone I don't know, I therefore suppose he is less educated than that and the CONTENT of what he wrote becomes questionable.
  • What about all those freaks with the oversized palm protectors? They take a slim Palm and make it into a some ugly metal box...

    Surely they would dig this!

    We might even be able to get some name brand behind it. Imagine! A genuine Leatherman Palmtop!
  • a guy who has equipped his 3500 field engineers using the new Agenda VR3 palmtop's.

    like why I havn't gotten mine, even though I ordered it two weeks ago.

    Maskirovka

  • And that's why Agenda Computing has released 99.9% of their source code to the public. The only piece that you can't download is the bootloader (partly because no one outside of Agenda has the equipment to debug it).

    As far as being compliant to standards, the Agenda VR3 can do an IR transfer to and from any device that PalmOS can. It can even transfer to PocketPC without any problem. And the networking is all done using PPP. I've connected to my VR3 from Windows using Internet Explorer to view webpages served off of the VR3. In order to sync with a desktop PC, the VR3 uses rsync. Again, this works with Linux, MacOS, Windows, etc.

    And finally, Agenda doesn't really care if other people use their software. From what I've heard, there is another Linux PDA that has Agenda's PIM applications. (Probably the iPaq, but I'm not sure).

    You're right about standards being important. Agenda has made sure to follow that idea. I'm not sure about others. Does anyone know if the Yopy is actually opensource (beyond the kernel and minimal parts of their distribution)?

    -Sean

  • I know that some of you must use these things, but I have never (nor have most of my co-workers) had the need to poke away at a little screen with a little pen-like stylus. A $20 paper organizer seems to serve the same function as a $150 PDA. Now we have a Linux version? Besides you hardcore fans, why would anyone give 2 craps? Linux, Unix, Solaris, Mac OS... as long as it does the job, (Note the lack of any Microsoft OS, BSOD does not constitute productivity) who cares what OS the mini screen is running?

    Just my buck fifty (hey, inflation sucks!)
  • I was a bit near-sighted in my analysis. Of course there are many in-the-field uses for a PDA, but being an office kinda guy, I totally overlooked that aspect of usefullness.

    My bad, I am sorry that I forgot the field guys!

  • A good first step (Score:4)

    by screwballicus ( 313964 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @08:40AM (#84076)
    Now I know if I were a field researcher and my boss were to equip me with an IPAQ, my productivity would increase tenfold...in Pocket Quake [pocketquake.com]. I think it's important that even researchers in the field have what office workers have had for years: work computers the growth of whose pr0n archives is directly proportional to the increase in their cumulative Solitaire scores.
  • I wonder if really the slew of applications for Palm machines was really so important for their success, or it was the other way around. Developing for embedded devices has always been a bit of a moving target. The systems change too ofen, due to the constraints of the format. So the different APIs are going to be a minor problem, IMHO. Some implementation/machine will be the most popular, and development will standarise on it. Other will serve niche markets, and in any case porting shouldn't be so difficult, all taken into account.

    If not, I think it makes a lot of sense using Java, as the article states. Does not solve all problems, but should make porting easier.

    --

  • there is no problem with APIs--unless... (Score:5)

    by janpod66 ( 323734 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @10:36AM (#84078)
    I have been developing for the Agenda VR3 for a few months, and it's great. The Agenda runs a 2.4 Linux kernel and standard X11. Standard Linux applications usually require little more than recompilation. For development, you can telnet into the device, use rsync, have workstation applications use the device as their display, or have agenda applications use the workstation as their display.

    The X server binary on the Agenda is a little over 1M and has an in-memory size of 540k. There is also about 2.5M of GUI libraries and fonts installed, although, obviously, not all of that gets loaded into memory. That's not tiny, but it's quite acceptable even on a 16M/16M machine like the Agenda VR3. On the next generation Linux handhelds, which will probably have at least 64M of flash and 64M of memory, this is pretty much negligible.

    I think the biggest win of Linux-based handhelds is their compatibility with Linux/UNIX desktop APIs. And the biggest threat to them is people crafting oddball APIs because they somehow believe that these little handhelds can't run the desktop APIs. There is no need. Even the Agenda VR3 is a faster and more powerful machine than many UNIX workstations a few years ago, workstations that ran UNIX and X11 just fine.

    I particularly think that trying to push systems like Qt/Embedded onto Linux handhelds "for efficiency reasons" are self-serving attempts by a vendor to corner the Linux embedded GUI market: once a handheld is based around such a non-X11 window system, commercial developers have little choice but to buy the commercial libraries. And there is no indication that systems like Qt/Embedded are more efficient in any practically interesting way that an X11 server.

    So, my recommendation is: if a "Linux handheld" doesn't run a standard Linux kernel and a standard X11 server, forget about it and don't buy it--there are plenty that do.

    (As an aside, the Agenda VR3 is a great machine. You have to make sure that you have a recent version of the software installed; some of the machines ship with a really ancient version of the OS. The standard calendaring applications aren't quite up to Palm3/4 quality, but for developing and deploying custom applications, it's a lot better than the Palm. The biggest limitation is the lack of expandability--support for CF cards would be really great.)

  • How well is the recognition of real handwriting supported? I remember _years_ ago it already worked very well in Apple's Newton Message Pad...
  • I don't think you need to have it that big. Something the size of a cable modem box would be fine. Imagine a small keyboard, thick and heavy, with a row of ports across the front or back and an LCD screen at the top.

    The form would be like this, but with real CPU and memory:

    http://www.quickpad.com/ [quickpad.com]

    But what we are describing isn't really a "Palm Top", but just an ordinary laptop finally done right.

  • it runs linux, which is nice...but AAA batteries? i thought we wanted something robust.

  • Developing Standards Under Linux (Score:5)

    by Thomas M Hughes ( 463951 ) on Sunday July 15, 2001 @08:18AM (#84082)
    I think it is important that Linux handhelds not do the same thing that we criticize large corporations for doing when a standard is developed. That means it should be an open standard. That means other people (who aren't running Linux) should be able to interface with it easily.

    Yes, this does mean you are making it easier for your competitor to steal your work, but that was the whole point of being open. So you don't have to re-invent to wheel, and the person who impliments the standard the best rises to the top.

    Word isn't evil because its a Microsoft Word Processor. Its evil because it uses a proprietary file format that is accepted in the business world. Linux hand helds would be just as propreitary if they closed their standards to corporations (like Microsoft) when, and if, they become the defacto standard.
    ---
  • Linux is best. Don't settle for any other half-baked OS. GET LINUX.

    There always seems to be a group of people who are against this or that simply because it's fashionable. Granted: I don't know Linux. I am not a programmer, so I cannot appreciate the beauty and elegance of Linux code compared to Windows, or whatever.

    But what's the big deal, really? Why do so many people who consider themselves "in the know" bash Microsoft (e.g., "windoze" and the like, ad infinitum) and the Microsoft family of operating systems, software, etc.? If Linux is so great, why doesn't it have the marketshare that Microsoft has?

    It's a conspiracy, right? Big, bad Microsoft won't let the little guys compete, and it's NOT FAIR. Therefore, everyone should switch to Linux because yada-yada-yada.

    I guess I should install Linux on a box at work and play around with it, just to see for myself. I'm a Windows user, which probably makes me seem a lot less intelligent to the audience here, but I look at it this way - I drive a car to get from one place to another. My car is a tool. Same goes for my computer. I use my computer at work and at home to perform certain tasks, and the Windows OS works just fine for me.

    I hope this isn't interpreted as a flame or a diatribe. I'd really like to know what all the fuss is about. What's so great about Linux?

  • "Make him an offer, he can't refuse."

    Actually, FlameBoy, the sentence you wrote is grammatically incorrect. It should be two separate sentences:

    "Make him an offer. He can't refuse."

    When combining two complete sentences, you need to use "or" or "and," thus:

    "Make him an offer, and he can't refuse."

    But that's not what the Don said, right? So, in order to print what he actually said (IF he said it the way you indicate), it would have to be written:

    "Make him an offer. He can't refuse."

    But I've seen the movie at least a dozen times. Brando doesn't pause between "offer" and "he." He says it flat out - "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."

    And after all this typing, I've proven absolutely nothing.

  • I use/develop on it more than any other OS.

    That's great for you, but I'm not a software developer or programer. I don't need to know how the OS works in order to use it. I use my computer mostly for word processing, some web site development, email . . . stuff like that.

  • I buy my computers. And software. I like getting a good deal for my money. Linux is that good deal. Windows is not.

    I buy and assemble my own computer components, too. I like some Microsoft software (Office, for the most part) because of its ease of use and consistent user interface. That's the way it is with most Microsoft products - if you know how to use one, you can pretty much use all of them. Do all of the Linux apps out there have a consistent user interface, or does every program have its own standards?

    I gather from what you've stated (and from what I've picked up here and there) that there are 4 main areas in which Linux outperforms Windows: stability, multiuser support, plasticity (i.e., Linux can be configured to suit the whims of the developer), and networking. It's "free," too, but that depends on one's definition of "free." But still - I don't see how those reasons apply to me.

    Stability
    I have often heard how "stable" an OS is Linux, but in my (albeit LIMITED) personal experience, Linux crashes, too - just not as often. I have experienced my share of computer crashes, lost data, hours lost reinstalling, reconfiguring, etc. It's frustrating as hell, I'll admit, but it doesn't happen to me that often. But that's just me. Maybe it happens to others a lot more often.

    Multiuser support
    A Linux box can be configured for multiple users more readily than can a Win9X box. Again, this doesn't really apply to me because I'm the only person who uses my computer at home and at work. Besides, we're an NT shop at work with a domain and users, and it's been working just fine for us for several years.

    Plasticity
    Linux can be configured or customized; Windows cannot, at least not to the extent that Linux can. This would be great if I was a software developer, but I'm just an end user. I dabble in web sites, spreadsheets, databases, and stuff, but I don't do any coding (other than HTML, but that's not really "code," is it?) So for me, the plasticity of Linux isn't all that important. I'd even venture to say that it is irrelevant to my needs.

    Networking

  • For some reason, the URL I copied for the "Why Linux Sucks" page didn't work. Here it is again:

    Why Linux Sucks [spatula.net]

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