Re: Linux on Hand Held Computers?

["Curtis L. Olson" <curt@me.umn.edu>]

John C. Peterson writes:
> The list appears to have "taken off" (pun intended). I just
> checked and there are now 56 subscribers to linux-aviation from
> all over the world: Australia, Canada, Europe and the US. Welcome to
> everyone, please feel free to post questions and ideas!
> 
>  Let me throw out a topic of personal interest for discussion, namely
> "What will the future hold for Linux and Hand Held Aviation related
> computing???"  I'm most interested in the smaller devices that will fit
> in a shirt pocket, can easily be mounted on the yoke, panel or perhaps
> a small "knee board", and has reasonable battery life.  Here's some
> things to reflect on;
> 
>   1) What are the most promising platforms for Hand Held Aviation
>      Computing??? The 3Com Palm devices are obvious candidates: there
>      is already a good interface between Linux and PalmOS, small size,
>      good battery life, large existing user base, etc.

I own a palm pilot, and I have fallen in love with it's simplicity,
it's flexibility, it's ease of use, and it's hack-ability.

>   2) What is the long term prospect of running Linux itself on such
>      devices???  I know there is a already a project that is taking on
>      the task of porting Linux to small memory environments. Check out
>      the uCLinux web web site at;
> 
> 	http://ryeham.ee.ryerson.ca/uClinux/ (Main, US Site)
> 	http://humbolt.geo.uu.nl/~riel/uClinux/ (Mirror, Europe)

For a non-techy person, PalmOS is pretty simple for loading and
deleting applications and doing admin tasks.  It's simple enough that
there's not much that can go wrong, not much you can screw up, and not
much to get your head around to figure out all the basics.

As much as I like Linux, I'm not sure it would really contribute
anything to the usefulness and simplicity of the palm pilot.  I would
vote for keeping it small, keeping it simple, and keep it running
PalmOS.

>   3) What would be the major advantage of running Linux itself on these
>      devices, or is it better to just stick with the native environments
>      (e.g.  PalmOS)???  What about developing code in Java? For example,
>      see
> 
> 	http://www.hewgill.com/pilot/jump/index.html (Jump)
> 	http://www.cs.utah.edu/~mcdirmid/ghost/ (Ghost)
> 	http://www.wabasoft.com/overview.html (Waba)

I suppose the big advantage of running Linux on the pilot is that apps
developed for linux would immediately run on the pilot ... or would
they?  Even with Linux running on the Palm Pilot, you have to be
concerned with display size and capability.  Do you have X11 on your
pilot?  Gtk?  Tcl/Tk?  Would these also be ported to the pilot?  If
so, would they fit?

My Linux machine runs pretty well with 128Mb RAM ... but once in a
while I think I might like to slap in another 128Mb.  My palm pilot
has 1Mb.  Even back when I had a 386 with 4Mb of RAM unix ran pretty
well until I tried to do anything graphics related.

I guess my point is that there are enough hurdles to over come, that
it might be just as easy to write a native PalmOS version of the app,
rather than trying to wedge Linux + X11 + other libs + application +
data onto the palm pilot.

Linux makes a great development platform and could be used to develop
palmos applications ...

<ramble alert>

Linux is wonderful for server roles, wonderful for technical users,
and wonderful for average users (if someone maintains the machine for
them).  But, I still hesitate to recommend Linux to ye olde random
user who has to setup and maintain their own machine.  I hesitate to
recommend windows to these same people for the same reasons.  No
matter how simple MS tries to make it, it still is bizarre, hard to
understand, and very complex and obfuscated in many areas.

What I would love to see is something akin to PalmOS for desktop
computers.  This would provide an ultra simple environment for
non-techy users.  It would be simple and hard for them to screw up.
They could run their applications and not have to spend much time
keeping their machine alive.

Curt.
-- 
Curtis Olson                        University of MN, ME Dept.
curt@me.umn.edu                     
http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt      Try Linux!
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