Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Pittsford,NY,USA
Posts: 223

Check out this article http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=179 very interesting. Before you dismiss it altogether, some people have already gotten Linux to run on a Pilot, check out this page http://www.uclinux.org/ .

-Eric

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

Actually, this was one of the first apps that came to mind when I hear about the Springboard. The idea of a Plug-n-Play Linux is great, especially since Handspring is in a very vulnerable position as a licensee of the Palm OS. We as consumers are equally vulnerable if Palm Computing withdraws its license to Handspring or raises the price of the license considerably.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Salem, OR, USA
Posts: 91

I doubt the terms of the license allow for either of those to happen. I want Linux running on my Visor just as much as I want Windows running on it. Would you buy a WinCE springboard? This market needs to standardize on a platform, it doesn't need another one. Reread the previous posts and substitute Linux for Windows 98. Scary, isn't it?

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 13

Porting Linux to Palm/Visor devices sounds just like mental masturbation. What would be the benefit of that operation? Don't take me wrong, I am a UNIX developer and I like it a lot.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 42

I gotta agree with that...

Are there potential benefits in a Linux Visor? - 'cause there seems to be a lot of people trying to achieve it. Is this just for academic curosity or is there a potential advantage?

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 21

The biggest benifit would obvisouly be to walk around... and show someone. It'all all about the bragging rights...

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

It's not like I'm losing sleep over the possibility that the Palm OS license could be withdrawn at any time, but I wouldn't go jumping to the conclusion that it's impossible, either. Umax and Power Computing sales reps reassured their customers that the Mac clones they purchased would be supported indefinitely. Some consumers bought their clones only weeks before Steve Jobs withdrew the Mac OS license (by the way, remember the Newton?). I don't think this is an academic point. Yes, it's far-fetched; yes, Handspring probably took this into consideration; and yes, 3Com will probably act on good faith. But if Handspring won't discuss the terms of licensing, I think we should reserve at least *some* skepticism.

Linux is not intrinsincally a server/desktop OS, although these are the configurations we're most familiar with. There are microkernel verions of Linux that run much smaller devices that the Visor/Palm. It's not like the UI would be an X-windows client. You could easily construct an interface similar to the Palm OS. This is another advantage of GPL'ed code: *we* get to decide what we want. So the Win-CE and BeOS running on the Visor are not analagous.

For those who are mystified as to why anyone would want Linux running on the Visor except for the geek factor, remember that the geek factor is the foundation of all consumer-oriented information technologies (e.g. PCs, pagers, cell phones, PDAs, etc.). Only later do their killer-apps and become ubiquitous. Russ Walter said it best: "The computer is a solution looking for a problem."

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 42

I would have thought that, really, it wouldn't matter if 3Com withdrew the licence at a later date. Once you have a unit in your hand with a valid licence, they can't stop you using the OS retrospectively. And without flash potential, there's no issue of upgrading the OS.

It would matter for future development, especially for springboard modules, which I imagine are developed through a subsidiary licencee arrangment under Handspring's PalmOS licence from 3Com. So to my mind, it's not such a bad idea to be developing cross-platform operability.

If something better comes along, why not adopt it? The only loyalty I have to the PalmOS is habit and that it's better for my needs than Wince. When something else comes along, I'll use it. Simple Darwinism.