Re: Familiar Distribution for iPAQ

[Jim Tittsler <jwt-tlug@example.com>]

On Fri, May 11, 2001 at 01:55:42AM +0900, Joss Winn wrote:
> On Fri, May 11, 2001 Jack Morgan wrote:
> > > ... my Compaq ipaq. 
> > 
> JM> How did you get your hand on one?

I've actually had it since last August (thanks to Circuit
City's web site and package forwarding parents), but only
installed Linux recently.  It was hard to give up Transcriber
(which does *amazingly* good/useful handwriting recognition)
and AvantGo.

> > > ... but Linux on the ipaq is far more customizable
> > > for the nerd.
> > 
> JM> Can you speak on this topic at a future meeting?

Sure.

> Could you possibly go into more detail here on this list for
> people that are outside of Tokyo?  Any info would be good, but
> specifically: how stable is it, what use is it right now, how
> is the installation, does installing it ruin any chance of
> going back to M$ CE? etc. etc.

It seems stable, but Linux in the iPAQ world is still
undergoing rapid development.  Power management in particular
has been slow to develop, and until this week's CVS kernel the
LCD didn't always turn on immediately on "resuming".  (Many of
the key contributors to the development at at Compaq's
Cambridge Resarch Laboratories, but for the most part they seem
to be reverse engineering as much as everyone else.)  The
primary filesystem in use for the flash memory has changed in
the past couple of months to make writes more convenient.

Is it useful?  It is a *neat* hack, does it need to be useful
too?  When I was a boy, a machine with this functionality...
oh, never mind.

It is not nearly as usable as WinCE (again, because there is no
Transcriber) nor are the "productivity" applications as fully
developed.  Data entry via either the virtual keyboard or
fscrib is tedious in the extreme.  However if you want to run
Python in your pocket and make your own GUI apps with PyGTK for
some custom tasks, then it wins.  Or if you want to use
"standard" networking tools (like ssh and rsync) to connect
with infinity and beyond it is a good solution.  And the
applications that do exist don't tie you to Windows or
Outlook.

You can backup your WinCE ROM images so that you can reprogram
them into the iPAQ's flash ROM if you decide to go back to the
dark side.

http://www.handhelds.org/ will give you a more complete
picture than I can.

There are a number of distributions:
  - the original Handhelds.org (HH) distribution, now being
    folded into Familiar
  - Familiar:  Debian-esque, with a rapidly developing 'ipkg'
    small package manager
  - Intimate:  targets the "big system" iPAQ, meaning one
    with an IBM microdrive hard disk with ReiserFS
And some things that don't quite fit the traditional definition
of a "distribution", but are somewhat more "packaged systems"
that fit atop the main Linux::
  - PocketLinux: Transvirtual's Java (Kaffe) and XML environment
    running atop Linux on the iPAQ http://www.pocketlinux.com/
  - QPE Qt Palmtop Environment: Qt/Embedded (no X server) and
    applications http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/embedded/qpe.html

-- 
Jim Tittsler
Kanto Computer Calendar  http://www.OnJapan.net/calendar/
Tokyo PC Users Group     http://www.TokyoPC.org/