Windows Embedded 6

[jpmatrix]

well,
micro$oft has just launched windows embedded 6 and opened the source code... would i imagine a port of windows embedded on the Zaurus or am i stupid, idiot, fool ...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/.../techspecs.mspx

[Da_Blitz]

it looks intresting (saying this from a win mobile 5 unit as we speak)

but when it comes down to it linux wins handsdown in features, if there os a dektop app I need I just compile it whereas I need about $100 of pocket PC software just to get it to the 'usable" state and about $550 to get it to where I am quote comfterble using the thing (dont ask just know I can )

this shared source thing is a bit of a joke,  its a see but can't touch model, if you want to tinker you haved to fork ove
 more cash, for some of the areas they are targeting it dosent make sense to use winCE (eg robotics) mainly because in those markets source code is high prioity

it would be good for black box applinces that don't ever get upgraded (eg GPSi units) howeve  all wince products I have seen slow to a crawl when more than 2 apps are running and one of them is waiting for user input., after playing with winCE 5 for a week now its nice tthat its easy to navigate with 2 buttons however only microspft apps seem to take advantage of it

bit long and off topic but I haven't had a problem with my Z
hall in all a win ce port would be possible bit look at the prices, SDK starts at $10000 but at leasthits per hardware costs are cheap

[danboid]

The PXA2XX processors are listed as being supported under the Intel section so there's a good chance I'd think.

I agree with DB- seeing CE on the Z would certainly be interesting and it may even be better than cacko for certain PDA'y functions but there's no way I'd have CE on over pdaXrom or OZ- at least not unless CE 6 is a VAST improvement over 5. I've not read a whole lot about it yet but its obviously not 'proper' open source so I can't see many outside of MS bothering to do much to improve the OS and there's nowhere near as much quality FOSS software available for CE compared to under Linux/*BSD.

[Cresho]

Gee, I can't wait for "Windows Genuine Advantage!"  It is the ultimate.  

[desertrat]

I agree with DB- seeing CE on the Z would certainly be interesting

Umm, if people wanted to run wince why not just get a wince device. It would only be interesting (IMO) if we can run it as an emulation or VM under Linux

[Da_Blitz]

i am supprised at how snappy linux is (even 2.4) on such a limited platform compared to todays PCs. mulittasking is a joke on a wince platform (i love it how that comes out as "wince" and not Windows CE)

i would love to see a port, mainly because i dont belive that it would fit with the zauruas usage paradigm and i dought it would live up to our standards, lets face it about 90% of us would be considered above power user status if we used a winCE PDA (i mean how many people have bit torrent, java, a websever, and ftp support on thier windows CE PDA (excluding me of course, i consider these things necsarry))

as for winCE under linux i daont really see the point, i cannot think of anything that a full blown linux desktop app cant do that a WinCE app can. sure there some examples where WinCE has a better interface for it but i dont see the point of VM'ing it just for the interface.

i still belive that my idea for seperating the interface from the program is a good idea. in the linux PDA world it makse sense as you can just edit a skin file or download one to get a better layout for a 320x240 or 240x320 screen or 16:9 screen.

i am thinking somthing simmilar to a web server for acsess to the raw data and a default skin (used if no overide in ~ exsits) and provide a stacking system so that you can create system wide color, obejct placment schemes easily (like css). any input on this (a bit OT)

[desertrat]

as for winCE under linux i daont really see the point, i cannot think of anything that a full blown linux desktop app cant do that a WinCE app can. sure there some examples where WinCE has a better interface for it but i dont see the point of VM'ing it just for the interface.

Perhaps I should clarify - it's interesting from academic point of view, show a wince user what the Z can do running linux then add as an aside "btw it also runs wince". From a practical pov, if a future Z or Pocket Penguin is powerful enough to run wince (emulation/vm) then being able to run the navigation/mapping apps, that are sadly not available on Linux, would be quite useful.

[Da_Blitz]

well i belive that there is arm system emulation of a intel ixp system. all you would have to do is find an image that supports it

[speculatrix]

whilst I don't think that anyone would port WinCE to run on zaurus hardware (although Sharp did it with the 6000 aka Flora) except as proof of l33t skillz (or insanity), and a virtual machine might not be possible with the arm architecture (I don't know enough about the PXA255 or 270 MMU etc)and it'd probably be too memory hungry and processor thirsty, I think there's one big possibility not mentioned:

winCE compatibility layer for linux (just as WINE does for Windows), allowing you to run WinCE applications on top of opie or X.

the alternative at the moment would be to port Cygwin to WinCE to add a linux compatibility layer to WinCE, which would in some ways be the worst of both worlds.

this is the way that palmsource, er, Access, are going with palm... to use linux as the core, and wrap it up in a clean well managed gui. Kind of like what Apple did with OSX.

if wince apps on linux took off, then hopefully we'd get some native ports, and then be able to dump the WinCE layer

[speculatrix]

p.s. BTW, there's a book, I can't remember its name, but it describes how WinCE got started, and explains how it developed. It started from a clean sheet, using the Win32 API, but none of the code at all. It was originally quick, light-weight, clean and elegant. The designers deliberately wrote only the necessary stuff for an embedded OS to work, and kept it modular; by writing from scratch they intended to learn from the mistakes of Windows but keep the best of the ideas.

Only when people persistently asked for new bits of the Win API to be put in did they did so, however, as time went on, the demands to keep bolting new bits in took off and it grew fat and bloated.

In theory, as I understand it, if you're a device developer, you can still build a minimal WinCE system which is sleek and quick, but in practise every device you can buy has to contain the full system build to be labelled Windows Mobile and is thus slow and bloated.

[Da_Blitz]

thats true, i have heard wince is great but have yet to see it at the high performance levels, seems the manufacturer is to blame on that one

it does seem to mee that microsoft tends to take the 10 foot pole aproch to the industry and when they do research only ask people who usethier products what they would like to see rather than look at the industry as a whole, this may be win xp only and not wince but there seems to be a complete lack of intrest in the inovation of the rest of the world

they seem to react not invent but claim it as thier own

[desertrat]

they seem to react not invent but claim it as thier own

For all the crap they spout about protecting IP (their IP) it is incredulous to note that even though they have been convicted of stealing* (eg Stac Electronics vs Microsoft and the more recent case involving a South American guy and Excel - sorry can't remember details) the punishment they have received has been no more than a gentle tickle. If the RIAA can threaten children with jail time for copyright infringement, and heads of corporations can be jailed for price-fixing (re: the RAM scam) why is it that a convicted monopolist can increase it's monopoly as it's "punishment" (part of the settlement was that MS had to "give away" a certain number/value of Windows licenses)?

* in both cases MS had wilfully incorporated technology that the other party had shown to MS, on the intent of the other party and the pretense of MS, to have said technology licensed to MS. So having seen the technology MS decided that instead of paying the appropriate royalties/licensing fees they would just use the technology anyway, clearly this is stealing.

[Da_Blitz]

they seem very used to throwing thier wiegh around and making it stick, i really wonder where this novel deal is going and where novel will be compared to redhat

personally i dont like ethire distro, novel seems like cheap candy with no real meat to the distro and redhat is redhat (basically i have nothing )

it does seem to set a precedent but i wonder how this will play out

well i guess the only thing i have left too do is pool my money, buy an island, get a huge amount of net bandwidth, declare myself a country, refuse IP patents to anyone "visiting" the islad, wether virtually or phisically

[stampsm]

they seem very used to throwing thier wiegh around and making it stick, i really wonder where this novel deal is going and where novel will be compared to redhat

personally i dont like ethire distro, novel seems like cheap candy with no real meat to the distro and redhat is redhat (basically i have nothing )

it does seem to set a precedent but i wonder how this will play out

well i guess the only thing i have left too do is pool my money, buy an island, get a huge amount of net bandwidth, declare myself a country, refuse IP patents to anyone "visiting" the islad, wether virtually or phisically
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nice idea can we call the country penguin?

[Da_Blitz]