The perfect Linux PDA

[amrein]

It\'s just the Zaurus OS that need to be completely replaced. :evil:

At present, there\'s no complete embedded Linux OS for PDA that is good enough for mass market. No good PIM, no powerfull and free World Editor, Spreadseet or Presentation Maker, no got Jotter nor Drawer, no good Recorder, no Route/Street Planner that could compare with other plateform, no free Dictionnary no Program Editor (kate port is perhaps good enough).
Don\'t even try to tell me that you only need to use ssh or any other tools that is not for newbee or for Windows everyday user. What are all those fxxking bxxtar whose only think about PDA like a command line tools and think about users as if they were Power User with no standard need and a keyboard transplanted on hands.

This market as any other one that havent thought enough will be closed. Sharp and other are already closing their web site. Are you sure that your way of thinking is still the best? You have been evaluate, you have been judge, you have been marked as uninteresting by the mass market.

The only apps that apparently are good enough are Opera, NetFront, E-mail and Multimedia Players.
Buying a Zaurus, I have bought a portable Internet/MP3/Movie player box but not a PDA. Since the beginning, I\'m fxxking waiting for something that could change this state. At present, I only think about OE, Cacko and X11 rom. The last one is more open for application portability, open and closed source developpement, restructuration, Linux PDA furture... even if it is not ready today.

Note: The base system, witch deal with CF, memory, framebuffer, thread and command line tools is good. It\'s the surrounding layer that is completely crap, messy, and without good application porting ability (I mean, simply get a source code, compile it to have a arm package then install it for testing before trying to see what could be modify for a better PDA usage).

[grey_moon]

\"No good PIM, no powerfull and free World Editor, Spreadseet or Presentation Maker, no got Jotter nor Drawer, no good Recorder, no Route/Street Planner that could compare with other plateform, no free Dictionnary no Program Editor (kate port is perhaps good enough).\"

Whats good enough is generally dependant on the person using it...  
I\'m pretty happy with what comes with the sharp rom, does what i need without too much hooha
And compared to other platforms, the \"good\" proggies are generally not free...

[tumnus]

Chill amrein! I find zBedic is a perfectly good free dictionary, as is eDict. tkcEditor is also an ok syntax highlighting editor. Have you tried the latest version of KO/Pi for a Calendar/Todo app? I like Drawpad too for a jotter and there are a few others now, but of course every has different needs. (Out of these apps, only zBedic needs files installing manually, but that can be done with a filemanager)

I agree that Hancom Office definitely needs a lot of work (better file format support - complete round tripping would be best, spellchecking etc) and there is a general lack of commercial support. Besides all the things like lack of advertising and support from Sharp I think the lack of an open and extensible sync framework also hurt sales and still does as it is an even bigger mess than it was. Don\'t see how this can be fixed though. Syncing needed to be done decently from the start.

[amrein]

Yearh, the more I grow old, the more I irritate easily (like my Swiss-deutch grand father ;(

One and only one operating system should emerge on PDA in order to allow some kind of standardization / interoperability / centralised effort. It\'s the community that should make this choice. Everyone wanting a powerfull OS should support the one they love to make it win the market. Make your choice, and make it quickly so things could move forward.

So my reply to the perfect Linux PDA question is:

 - We already has the hardware (even if some part could be added like bluetooth or wifi). It\'s the operating system + user interface + end user applications that is worthly of attention. If a good OS emerge, all manufacturers will want to build new improved hardware for it (and then, hardware discussion could go on).

I\'m not saying that we shoudn\'t talk about hardware features but that even if it was a PXA 2 GHz 256 Mo rram and 128Mo of flash, they will have the not user friendly label on their back.
See Zaurus 5000, 5500, 5600, 700, 750, 760, 860 specifications and hardware improvements and understand what I mean.

[padishah_emperor]

It\'s just the Zaurus OS that need to be completely replaced. :evil: 

At present, there\'s no complete embedded Linux OS for PDA that is good enough for mass market. No good PIM, no powerfull and free World Editor, Spreadseet or Presentation Maker, no got Jotter nor Drawer, no good Recorder, no Route/Street Planner that could compare with other plateform, no free Dictionnary no Program Editor (kate port is perhaps good enough).
Don\'t even try to tell me that you only need to use ssh or any other tools that is not for newbee or for Windows everyday user. What are all those fxxking bxxtar whose only think about PDA like a command line tools and think about users as if they were Power User with no standard need and a keyboard transplanted on hands.

This market as any other one that havent thought enough will be closed. Sharp and other are already closing their web site. Are you sure that your way of thinking is still the best? You have been evaluate, you have been judge, you have been marked as uninteresting by the mass market.

The only apps that apparently are good enough are Opera, NetFront, E-mail and Multimedia Players.
Buying a Zaurus, I have bought a portable Internet/MP3/Movie player box but not a PDA. Since the beginning, I\'m fxxking waiting for something that could change this state. At present, I only think about OE, Cacko and X11 rom. The last one is more open for application portability, open and closed source developpement, restructuration, Linux PDA furture... even if it is not ready today.

Note: The base system, witch deal with CF, memory, framebuffer, thread and command line tools is good. It\'s the surrounding layer that is completely crap, messy, and without good application porting ability (I mean, simply get a source code, compile it to have a arm package then install it for testing before trying to see what could be modify for a better PDA usage).

I could not disagree more, it sounds to me that your ideal Linux OS would be just like PocketPC, I think you should calm down and reconsider what you want, maybe a Palm, or a Casio 32K databank. Or why not buy a NetBook and try and port your own Linux to it.  Or give up completely and watch TV.

It\'s also arrogant to assume everyone want the same software or hardware, Zaurus gives us choices, X or Qtopia, bluetooth or wifi (or none by my preference).

The Z is spot on for me, I love it and would not change a thing, you really dont sound happy about your choice, why not look at the Yopy.

[lardman]

.... and without good application porting ability (I mean, simply get a source code, compile it to have a arm package then install it for testing before trying to see what could be modify for a better PDA usage).

This is exactly what I do. The only troubles I generally have are with people not writing portable code (inc the configure script and Makefiles), but more often than not it works with only minor tweaks. There\'s no way around this other than to use an x86 chip or to have people write their code better.

I also love my Zs, they do what I want, if they don\'t then I can try to do something about it myself - keeps me occupied if nothing else. Actualy I especially like the fact that I can do something about it if I\'m not satisifed rather than having to email someone and prey thet they might, possibly reply and even more unlikely fix whatever problem I\'ve found (or feature I may want).

I do, however, agree that there is a fair bit of fragmentation in terms of the ROMs which are available, but there will always be people who want to use the old Sharp ROMs (and old is the operative word) for whatever reason (stability and easy of use is often quoted, but I think OZ is as good if not better - and it\'s newer and faster, etc.) so there\'s bound to be some fragmentation as people (OZ for example) try to push forward to better things (stagnation is one thing which will kill the Z methinks and I\'ll be very happy to avoid it).

Yes there\'s a lack of certain types of app, but this is a low volume market, and in any case Linux software is often free. If you don\'t like it, fix it yourself, or pay someone to do it for you.

The lack of polish in some apps (and even ROMs) is an issue about which I fully agree with you (and it\'s also a problem for desktop Linux vs Windows for example), however it\'s a little difficult as once you\'re au fait enough to actually do anything about these issues, they don\'t really matter to you any more. I don\'t know how to fix this particular issue, other than to pay people to do the programming (if you do it for free, then you generally only fix the things which are a pain for you).

Just a few of my thoughts,

Best regards to you all,


Simon

[corecoder]

I for one love my C860.
I can see though why applications are so important. My company uses PalmOS right now which is OK. I own two or three of these PalmOS devices. I use the TungstenT2 for all of my pim stuff because its easy and standard(sort of). I use the C860 for everything else from compiling to Samba shares to controlling the web server(redhat/fedora).
 I have two 5500s and don\'t plan to ever get rid of them if that says about my loyalty. I think the Sharps are great. Open source is a good way to go.

[nathanwms]

If we build it, they will come!

The greatest strength of using Linux on a handheld (open, free, user modifiable, linux community) is currently proving to be our greatest weakness (fragmentation, lack of standardization, etc).  I agree with amrein that if we had one or two \'roms\' that provided a complete user experience and did not require a person to be an experienced Linux user we would see more hardware/software developers developing for that environment.

In our current state, we are not a good market risk and Linux handhelds will continue to serve a niche market until this changes.  I am not advocating that all the innovative development taking place in the various camps should cease, but it would be nice to see at least one (OZ, pdaXrom, or other) stick its head above the crowd to become a legitimate contender in the handheld market.  If this were to happen, I think it would actually open the door for greater innovation than is currently taking place.

my $.02

nathan

[nathanwms]

P.S.

Looks like Lycoris is planning on their OS \'version\' being the one that will compete with the palm os and pocket pc.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7056225751.html

[grey_moon]

pocket pc? redmond linux project? itsn\'t this like pulling a mooney at m$

[nilch]

Even though Pocket PC Linux sounds so out of place, but names notwithstanding, I think Lycoris has the infrastructure and money power to at least be more fo a solid ground than invividual ROM designers.

I agree that most of Lycoris OS is based on OZ and other already existing ROM\'s but if they can add the spit and polish and ease of use and market it effectively, that would be a great boon for handheld Linux.
Much like what Lindows did for linux - it was named like Windows, was aimed at Windows users, looked and felt like Windows, but the marketing strength of a big company (apart from Rehdat etc) was a gooid thing for end-user linux (not that I like Lindows myself - too much of a windows like experience).

And really people in the end dont care if its Linux of Pocket PC or anything else as long as it DELIVERS.

[grey_moon]

isnt lindows or lindash as its now known in some places getting its bottom kicked all over the globe by m$ over naming atm?

but in terms of marketing strength i would rather look towards novell, redhat with dell and hp, as both of the h/w manufactures make pdas

[lardman]

Unless the hardware manufacturer (Sharp) sells enough units there won\'t be much commercial development.

Unless the user likes the unit\'s default software they won\'t buy it -] see above. Unless they are a hacker, and then they\'ll probably quite like the current situation, the choice, etc. ;-).


Si

[grey_moon]

Thats a very good point...
Althrough there are other contenders out there, theres the payon, some royal thing and the much hyped simputer...  The problem with the payon is that it is specifically aimed at industry
One thing could benifit the linux pda situation is if, hardware and os split like palm one and palm source.  U could choose to buy an ipaq or zaurus etc with windows, or without (at a cheaper price) then with that saving buy an os of your choice.  I\'cant see why large manufactures like hp and dell wouldnt grab the chance to not pay m$ a royalty fee and put backing into a open os.  Imagine what oz would be like if they had huge financial backing.  I wouldnt mind paying for a stable commecial version of oz thats guaranteed to work on a device, of course it would be nice if the edge stuff was freely avaliable liek most linux distros (i stuck with the sharp rom coz in my mind i paid for it... ;p )

[amrein]

I completely agree with you! And the reaction of padishah_emperor about what I have written is also completely part of what I was denoncing.


padishah_emperor, you want to know what I have bought so far? Here is the list:

HP48LX&GX, TI89, Psion Series 3, Psion Series 3a, Psion Series 3c, Psion Series 3mx, Psion Series 5, Psion Series 5mx Pro, Psion Revo, Psion netBook 64Mo RAM, HP iPaq 3870, Cassiopeia E-200, Sharp Zaurus 760.

Hey!!! I was forgetting my HP 200 LX and the two Atari Portfolio PDA.

And I still think that I\'m a normal PDA user with normal needs. . :roll: Perhaps with a little more PDA experience (and a lot of knowledge about Psion device as I worked for them too).