Ibm Linux Pda... Intersting! Options

[davidmcnaught16]

I spotted this over at ZDnet, could be interesting, dont know how it will work out, but it's potentially a good thing. hopefully It will end up providing some competition for Sharp (Better hardware / prices!), and spread the use of Linux in PDA's to europe and the US, as sharp has stopped suplying them:

"IBM will use Trolltech's Linux-based application platform to pose a challenge to software from Palm and Microsoft"


http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer...,2130499,00.htm


*Sorry, I didn't originally realise this was such an old story, but does anyone know if anything came of it, or if anyone appart from Sharp is considering using linux on a PDA?*

[lpotter]

This is a reference platform. We have been working with IBM on something, but I cannot tell you what. Only that it is really f**king cool!

[nilch]

lpotter, I must give this to you - you really know how to keep out hopes afloat :-)
without telling us anything at all.

and after the way Sharp let us all down (in the US), your efforts to inject in some enthusiasm in the developper community in every little way counts a lot - though I dont really know towards what end - since you dont seem to divulge much

[tumnus]

It's also an old story that got posted a while ago (Notice the Feb 2003 date on the article).

I'm guessing it's of more use in the enterprise market than consumer. I wish someone would do something like that over here in the UK. Then I could recommend the handhelds as wireless stores and packing terminals at our factory and get paid for playing^W developing on a Linux PDA

[acpkendo]

Could be this little beauty?

Wonder if anyone will commercialize this. . .

[ev1l]

Could be this little beauty?

As it was explained, it was a reference design, and no one that I know of picked it up. They didn't see the integration coming, and now the design is seriously missing communication features.

[adf]

A shame. surely the communications features could be tacked on to this design, with a few other minor tweaks and upgrades (it is a little short of ram for example). What are we really takning about? bleutooth 8211 (and a "phone card" to make the fcc happy?) and maybe usb?


something that more appraoches "opensource:..i guess "openspec?" hardware would be fabulous. I'd think a corp that made them would have no trouble selling 'em..if the feature set was contemporary

[ev1l]

"minor tweaks" is what you do if you want to end up with a semi-working solution. First generation S/E phones are a great example, as are the Z.
They totally lack in Integration (of the the software with the hardware, and with a normal desktop).
It's all very nice but in the end it'd still requier a degree to operate. IBM is very good at designing the hardware and the middleware, but for god's sake don't let them anywhere near GUI design if you value your sanity.

[adf]

I remember the os2 interface quite well hehe. no argument there. I meant hardware tweaks, like more ram, some more ways to connect to the gadget, like a usb host. What I was thinking was that if such a device was built, it would encourage development, and so encourage an evolution of handheld functionality..... OZ and Qtopia and existing, nice, projects --and maybe "real" debian?could be slapped on board with relative ease, along with the latest kernels . It seems like an alltogether good situation, assuming all the hardware specs and driver info were readily available. (and the device got built)

[dhns]

Could be this little beauty?

As it was explained, it was a reference design, and no one that I know of picked it up. They didn't see the integration coming, and now the design is seriously missing communication features.

And... it is based on the PowerPC 405LP processor. IBM has sold the 4xx line of processors to AMCC last year - and AFAIK there is currently no 405LP available.

So I would assume that it is a blueprint that ended in the trash...

I would have loved to compile Darwin and port the mySTEP libraries to it so that even MacOS X binaries would run...

-- hns