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Handhelds Software Hardware Linux

Dell Axim X50 Running Linux 132

Posted by timothy from the tempty-tempty dept.
Venture37 writes "the guys at handhelds.org have managed to boot the linux kernel on a Dell Axim X50 handheld, the project is at alpha stages, you can grab a copy of the files from handhelds.org or fisherss.com."
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Dell Axim X50 Running Linux More

Dell Axim X50 Running Linux

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  • Advantages and disadvantages of linux on a PDA (Score:5, Informative)

    by guyfromindia ( 812078 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:14PM (#12820679) Homepage
    Some may find this article informative.. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-em bdev.html [ibm.com]
    It discusses the various pros and cons of file systems, graphic systems, etc.

    • Re:Advantages and disadvantages of linux on a PDA (Score:5, Informative)

      by treff89 ( 874098 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:55PM (#12820873)
      As that article explores, Linux on a PDA is very much dependent on what you want to use it for. If you want a miniature computer which can do (most) things an ix86 can, great, go for it - Linux will allow you to compile many, many applications. However, if you just want to use your PDA as a PDA, the operating system already on there is specially created for your hardware and use, and unless you absolutely do not want to use it, there's no point in compounding the amount of time taken to set an appointment. (Although, I hear from my Windows Mobile friends, it's not very efficient at all.) PalmOS takes less taps to make an appointment than WM200x, (1 hard button press and 1 screen tap to be exact.) So basically, one would use Linux for more features, and to correct previous flaws (after all, it is OSS!)

      • Re:Advantages and disadvantages of linux on a PDA (Score:5, Informative)

        by BlueLightning ( 442320 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @04:37AM (#12821673) Homepage Journal
        Perhaps you have not seen these:

        http://opie.handhelds.org/ [handhelds.org]
        http://gpe.handhelds.org/ [handhelds.org]

        Familiar Linux [handhelds.org] for iPAQs and other handhelds (presumably the X50 soon) provides images that include Opie and/or GPE by default.

        It might also be pointed out that the Sharp Zaurus runs Linux natively, and manages to be both a useful PDA and a powerful computing platform at the same time, so the two are not mutually exclusive as you seem to imply.
      • I've had palmos on a clie, and now have the x50v. The x50v is really nice hardware with the fast cpu, the 2700g, the bluetooth and the wifi. The OS, however sucks badly. Every time when I have used bluetooth to get on the Internet, and want to go back to wifi, I have to go back change/fix network settings, reset the wifi (on/off), etc, a couple of times before the blasted thing will even associate to my wifi router.

        It's has pocketpc-2003, or is it 'windows mobile 2003' whatever. The built-in network connec
        • I have a Clie as well (NX80V), and couldn't agree more with your points. It's just so efficient, and the battery life can be increased by underclocking because of the efficiency of the OS. It can do everything! BTW - when a PPC has a decent thumbboard, 1.3+MP camera, big screen, high resolution, high battery life and good connectivity, with a usable OS (that includes Linux, or basically everything but WM2005) let me know and I will purchase it immediately!
  • But does it run Lin... i mean Win... i mean OS Xi?


    I know - it's bad. Mod me down.

  • Also Toshiba (Score:4, Informative)

    by espergreen ( 849246 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:50PM (#12820848) Homepage
    There is a similar project for Toshiba pdas. http://www.mnementh.co.uk/eseries/ [mnementh.co.uk]

  • eh, zaurus for me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jnf ( 846084 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:53PM (#12820860)
    After spending over a year both contributing and waiting for the linux port to become useable on my ipaq 2215, I decided to just buy a pda that supported linux natively. I commend these guys for their hard efforts, but really I wanted to be able to program _my stuff_ on it, not spend all my time programming to get a not-so-stable linux port that is only useable 30 seconds to a minute at a time.
    perhaps that axim people will have better luck, i surely hope so. But really if this is what you are looking for you should consider buying one that supports linux natively. Not only will it save you some time but you also get to put your money where your mouth is and support companies that support you.

  • Windows Mobile 2003 SE is Great - So why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Deviant ( 1501 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:57PM (#12820881)
    I have a Dell Axim X30 and I could not be more impressed with MS's latest PDA OS offerings. The unit is cheap, light, fast, stable and with pretty respectable battery life. It has loads of impressive software availible for it. I had a Palm based PDA/Cellphone hybrid for two years and had gotten used to Grafiti - the Transcriber handwriting recognition that lets you just write whole sentances on the screen simply amazing and on an entirely different level. On top of normal note taking and scheduling I can view/edit word documents and excel spreadsheets. I can surf the web including secure online banking sites and check my email with a 802.11b wireless VPN connection. I can watch videos and play music. I can take over PCs using RDC or vnc and connect to them with ssh and ftp. I can read books and manuals in either the Adobe or MS e-book formats. I have never had a problem with any of these things - a testament to how well it has stood up to my extensive use.

    From what I gather from the site Linux is nowhere near there on most, if not all, of these points. For your average user Linux might be there on the desktop, and it is my desktop OS, but it certainly is nowhere near there on the PDA. I enjoy tinkering with my PC OS but when it comes to my PDA it has to just work and it is for getting serious work done quickly. It is the device I turn to when all else fails to get the job done. This is one Linux user that is not going to be running Linux on his PDA. I think it is many years away from being close to functional in the way that I need it to be and the way MS's product is today. I give credit where it is due and MS is due it for their Windows Mobile OS.
    • Is that why many companies use Linux as their PDA OS of choice?
    • Mostly agreed. Although I'm very interested in trying out Linux on PDA's just to scratch that goddamn itch, the current version is reasonably sound. I also have an X30, and the wifi, apps, and navigation is pretty sound.

      Cons? Sure. The cheapo speaker blew out on my when I had Beta Player cranking up the tunes. Battery life on wifi is really short. The bluetooth keyboard I got took a pairing, backup, hard reset, restore, pairing, to get it working.

      But in a Microsoft shop, this is a pretty slick device. Syn

    • Re:Windows Mobile 2003 SE is Great - So why? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr. Hankey ( 95668 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @12:45AM (#12821018) Homepage
      You have a point about Linux for typical PDA use. I've used Linux on PDAs in several incarnations but I'm still most productive with my PalmOS-based Sony Clie. It does everything I want, is easy to use and has been very stable. On the other hand, I think it's great that there is further development with Linux on mobile devices such as this.

      Although most people may not know this, the port of Linux to the iPaq brought forth several nice embedded systems and even commercial products. Fluke for example created a Linux-based wireless network scanner using an iPaq. We use one at work, it's much lighter than a laptop and works with much less configuration. Odds are the device would have been slower to market and probably have had fewer features if the Linux port to iPaq handhelds had not existed.

      This story may not be interesting for everyone here, but to state that a Linux port to the PDA is irrelevent would be short sighted at best. There are many possibilities for a device which can be hacked up and turned into new products, and that's what excites me to see stories like this.
      • The Axim X50v has some extremely nice specs which are, unfortunately, completely unused by Windows Mobile 2003 SE. Things like the graphics card, the 600Mhz acceleration, the VGA graphics...All completely wasted under Windows.
      • I'm the founder of a OSS restaurant management software ( http://www.myhandyrestaurant.org/ [myhandyrestaurant.org]) and we're really looking at these linux ports on PDAs, because it would be the best solution for our customers. If we could hack a cheap PDA and install linux, we could create an ad-hoc distribution having only a browser (the application is web-based) and vpn connection autostarting at boot. This would really be fool-proof, plus would save battery power, thanks to wise process administration (unneeded desktop enviro
      • My mother uses a Zaurus in tandum with her PalmOs PDA.
        She dosen't use a desktop.

        She started using a Palm 7 with the intent of using a wireless PDA exclusively for her Internet access.
        She's upgraded a few times.

        Her next planned upgrade is to a PalmOne Treo 650. This PDA/Phone can be used as a wireless modem for a computer. The Zaurus can be that computer.

        The plan is to set up so mom can use her Zaurus when her Treo isn't powerful enough.

        Step two is to build a camra that supports bluetooth. The Linux PDA

      • I'm still most productive with my PalmOS-based Sony Clie. It does everything I want, is easy to use and has been very stable.

        How can this be? I have the Clie TH55, and the software is very unstable. Even doing a "find" causes the machine to reset. The web browser requires occasional resets. The HP48 emulator I installed locked the thing up so hard it wouldn't reset until the batteries ran dead.

        It's sad, because the TH55 hardware itself is kick-butt. But my next "palm" will be Windows-based.

        • I have an SJ-33, it's been great. It plays MP3 files off memory sticks, which appear as a hard drive under Linux when the transfer app is running. There's a great free Japanese dictionary app I found on Freshmeat, it even attempts to guess the kanji I'm writing and give the meaning. All the typical PIM apps do what they're supposed to, and kontact syncs fine with it. It comes with the full version of Bejeweled, and has great sound capabilities with most of the games I play on it.

          Most likely the difference
    • why?

      Hmm.

      Ehhhhhht-to ...

      VisualStudio?

    • Umm.. I have an X30 as well. How is it that you have 2003SE on it? As far as I know, Dell never released the SE upgrade for the X30.

    • Linux on handhelds is rock solid and widely used (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:33AM (#12821336)
      I enjoy tinkering with my PC OS but when it comes to my PDA it has to just work and it is for getting serious work done quickly. It is the device I turn to when all else fails to get the job done.

      There are dozens of handheld devices with Linux pre-installed and supported (often in innovative form factors and applications). There is nothing to tinker: they turn on and are rock solid. They also have lots of software available for them.

      Handhelds.org is an effort to bring Linux to unsupported devices, in addition to the supported devices. Why do people do that? Because they can and because they like to have an even broader range of hardware available to them. Generally, installing Linux on unsupported devices involves some effort, but in my experience, the end result is as solid as it is on supported devices.
    • WinCe/mobile has PalmOS beat on one thing only; natural handwriting recognition.

      You should know though (apparently having had a treo) that palm supports word/excel better than win mobile does. Formatting, saved files etc. It's a well known irony that palm does better than MS at it's own format.
      All the rest you mention...palm does that too, effortlessly (although why you'd want to read stuff in .lit I really don't know).

      "but when it comes to my PDA it has to just work and it is for getting serious work don
      • Technically, it's not Palm that supports MS Office formats so well, it's Dataviz's DocumentsToGo, which comes free with most Palms.

        I agree in general, though: Palm devices are still amongst the best general PDA devices.

        (and yes, I do work for Dataviz)
      • WinCe/mobile has PalmOS beat on one thing only; natural handwriting recognition.

        Even that depends on what you actually want from your handwriting engine. The PPC handwriting engine is easy to learn and does fairly well on normal text. But it is far from the fastest handwriting input method around, in particular if you need letter accurate input of things like names.
    • Actually in each example you've given not only do Linux PDAs support it but Linux PDAs far surppass Windows CE in that support.

      However most people who use Windows CE actually need the Microosoft brand name product.
      Most every Windows office application has a Windows CE counterpart. A clone exists for Linux PDAs and a file reader exists for PalmOs but only Windows CE has the offical PDA mini version of the same applications with the same support.

      However this means nothing to a person who runs Linux on the d
    • I don't understand the hype with Linux. So you get an extreamly hacked up special version of Linux ported to an otherwise unsupported platform...I think the better path is NetBSD. Not to start a my OS is better than your OS war, but of all the free unixes out there, NetBSD has the best stable port record.
    • I have an X50v with WM2003SE. I love the hardware, but I couldn't be more disappointed with the OS:

      1) It's temperamental. Like Windows on the desktop, it occasionally slows down for no reason, apps stop responding or close, etc. I have to stop and restart drivers (which sometimes means soft-resetting the device). It's much more stable than it was back in the pre-PPC days, but it's still flakey compared to, say, Linux and OS X.

      2) The process for loading applications can be restrictive and convoluted.
      • There was alot there but let me respond to some of it.

        I was aware that you couldn't sync it with Linux (which I run at home) but not about OSX which I agree is a bit of a bummer for those Macheads out there. Since I usually charge/sync it with my work PC (XP) and MS exchange that hasn't been an issue for me.

        I let all of the apps install to the default location and install into System Memory and I have never had a problem. I use the storage card only for documents/music/videos/backups. I had a few of th
        • As for MS porting their NT kernel/APIs to the PDA that is actually a good thing. Who wants to learn a different set of APIs and tools when they don't have to?

          But MS did not port the NT kernel or APIs to the PDA. Instead, they created a half-hearted derivative that is a pain to program even for Win32 programmers. That is in addition to the fact that NT was never designed for embedded systems.

          Linux, on the other hand, has the full desktop APIs on PDAs. Furthermore, its POSIX APIs have been used in embed

  • Project Details (Score:5, Informative)

    by Taxilian ( 516595 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @12:27AM (#12820965) Homepage
    I have been working with fisherss on this project (I'm Richard), and I thought I'd post a summary of the status, for any interested. We have a linux kernel booting, but we don't yet have wirless drivers working. USB networking is also in progress. This should go a little faster because the x50 (and x50v) use the same chipset for the wireless network that the ipaq hx4700 does, which is further along in the port. We hope to soon have a graphical interface up, and I will be trying to load the kernel on my x50 just as soon as I can get the files from Fisherss (I've been gone for a few days). It will probably be 6 months or so before linux is really usable on this device, and it could be longer before we can completely remove windows ce from the device. Anyone with low level distribution, drivers, and/or kernel experience who is interested in contributing to the project, we could definitely use your help! We learn quickly, but this is new to us... we just want to get past the limitations imposed by windows ce! =]
    • I've heard/seen pics that the palm t3's and later ipaq ppc's (iirc) have near identical hardware (at least in terms of circuitboard/cpu). What are the chances of getting this project working on a t3?

      • it is certainly possible. the t3 uses an ARM processor (not sure which one exactly) and the linux kernel has been ported to arm. The first thing you'd have to do is write a palm program that can probe hardware for you and return the values. I think the t3 has a serial port on it, so that would be a good way to send the output.

        The next thing you'd need to do is create a bootloader that would run as a palm program, reset the cpu (mmu, interrupts, etc), load the kernel into ram, and start executing it.

        Th

    • I'd just like to say that you guys made great progress! Keep up the good work!

      About some of these pda's, I read about USB host support. Do you think the x50/x50v can be USB hosts? That would be a really nice feature with a usb harddisk... especially with the intel 2700g and some appropriate xvmc support, or a special version of mplayer or something.

      Jelle.
  • What is the lowest cost handheld device on which I could do Haskell [haskell.org] development? Presumably the most sensible thing would be to try a Linux device as Haskell might be tricky to build for any other handheld OS. Would this device be a good option?

  • As an X30, X30H and iPaq (HP) owner (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:17AM (#12821276) Journal
    I am very keen to remove my reliance on the poor (yet just usable) tools. The RAPI, the cecopy etc was a bitch to get a real development cycle going, using Java (superwaba.com.br).

    As a veteran of 3 wireless applications that link to a remote interface I have seen a great deal of potential in the handheld paradigm, there was a slashdot link about a many to many pradigm in computing screens, where angles dictate what you saw, well my idea if different handhelds have differnet views on a computer system, like thin clients.

    Right now the ipaq is an up and coming bluetooth tv remote control, which shows the tv guide on the ipaq, and allows you to email using the qwerty keyboard, or web surf (built in apps).

    Right now it is a bad set of programs, and hacks, with linux opening up the system, I can make customised system designed for this.

    Imagine, watching seinfeld on xvid through your RF link to you 42" screen, from your PC, but then watching satellite channels on yoru handheld, while you check for latest news on an earthquake, and then at a push of a button send the image you are seeing to the tv screen.

    Yes, it is already here, but not working nicely.

    Wray for linux!

  • H1940 also on this list (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RedPhoenix ( 124662 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:19AM (#12821281)
    The IPAQ H1940/H1930 has also had some recent progress - Opie/GPE can now be booted via an NFS-mouted root, or from a ext2 loopback filesystem, mounted on a FAT16 SD card. Still a little work to be done, to replace the flash with a boot image though.

    H1940/30's are pretty cheap 2nd hand these days, and would make a reasonable linux handheld.

    Red.

  • Just became service unavailable (Score:4, Informative)

    by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:26AM (#12821313) Journal
    Fisherss' home page Last update: 6-14-2005 News: 6-14-2005 First Linux booting on DELL X50. We finally succedeed. The serial output of this alpha kernel version is available here. For this testing kernel, you can get output through serial cable only. After the penguin appeared for about 20 seconds, you can see some kernel mssages at the LCD (that means the framebuffer driver works), but the font is too small, so they can't be recognised. and then it stops there. That's not a problem, making GUI work is more and more easier than making kernel work :) I just tested it one my x50 (416) machine, so I don't know if it will also works on x50 (512) or x50v. If you have tested it, please tell me :P The necessary files can be downloaded here: haret.exe zImagex30s default.txt initrd NOTE: This kernel version is just for debugging, you can't see GUI at this time . And it will destroy all your data in ram, so make sure you have backed up you data. Make a copy of your rom image is also recommended, it is safe on my machine, but I am not so sure if it will be on yours.
    2005-4-21

    Successfully got serial kernel output.

    sting 123 Physical kernel address: a0008000 Preloader physical/virtual address: ab69b000 Physical initrd address: a0408000 Goodbye cruel world ... sting 123 Physical kernel address: a0008000 Preloader physical/virtual address: ab667000 Physical initrd address: a0408000 Goodbye cruel world ... Testing 123 Physical kernel address: a0008000 sting 123 Physical kernel address: a0008000 Preloader physical/virtual address: ab671000 Physical initrd address: a0408000 Goodbye cruel world .sting 123 Physical kernel address: a0008000 Preloader physical/virtual address: ab5ef000 Physical initrd address: a0408000 Goodbye cruel world
    2005-4-19 Great news, I have done my selfmade serial cable , it works fine. So the following steps should be quick. Thank you my friend reactos , thanks for your great help. After clean up my hundreds of cables, I will post the total debug information from serial port and complete my personal home page. And....... maybe I will post the practical serial cable making method and the images. PS: Getting past junk character filter was a bitch

  • Wonderful... (Score:2, Funny)

    by shmlco ( 594907 )
    Wonderful, a PDA that does... nothing at all. I suppose I could always amuse myself doing directory listings...
  • but noone wrote a post on /. to inform the masses...
    too bad but it's probably because develope do not want to many lusers asking questions arount untill things get a little more stable...
  • compete with Pocket PC (yet) for multi-function usability. Okay so in a typical day I use my IPAQ 2215 to Play music -GSPlayer Watch TV and Movies - Betaplayer Read newspapers and magazines - iSiloX Driving Directions - GPS navigation Bluetooth receiver w/ TomTom Play Games -Age of Empires Get restaurant review - Zagats to go Show pictures of my Daughter - Image Viewer Check TV listings - PTVL Draw rough floorplans in field for work - Pocket Painter Track appointments & Contacts - Agenda Fusion and if
  • Just now:
    http://narcotize.com/~axim [narcotize.com]

    In some hours, when the dns is ready:
    http://axim.narcotize.com/ [narcotize.com]

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