Ben Its not even cool enough to be a iPac. Its a Jornada 540 series, one of the early color displays. I have a lot of respect for HP handhelds so I got it, back when I thought I could live in both worlds (Linux and Microsoft.) It has a nice external design, but the heart is WinCE, and what a dog! MP3 file conversion, actually WMA, takes hours and the GUI is pathetic. I had to wait a year or so for them to fix the sync software to a workable condition. I did get a decent chess program from TuCows. I'm making some use of it.
I found a Palm III in the trash a few months back and I am still looking for a serial cable. I guess I better get on Ebay for that one. Of course there's always a possibility in yard sale hunting. I'm not holding my breath. These items turned out to be James Bond gadgets, I'm such a sucker for these things. The screen is too small to get any real work done. Brian -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Ben Barrett Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 10:08 AM To: The Eugene Unix and GNU/Linux User Group's mail list Subject: Re: [eug-lug]new toys : the linux struggle Assuming it is an iPaq (or similar), I don't think it'd be a "doorstop" issue (that's hardly *EVER* the case with new hardware -- in fact, that phrase is almost always reserved for old, heavy hardware, thank you very much-- I am a little jealous of your fancy PDA, so don't say that, please!) but I understand your hesitancy, it might take a lot of time and/or fussing to get the feature support you are seeking. It will *never* be just like it is with MicroTrash software, running linux, so the more you get used to that, and enjoy it, I'm guessing your choice is made for you. Most of us got to be "good" at linux simply because we were willing to take the plunge, and gave up some things along the way (most of which are hopefully regained and met)... I don't think this is new info, but wanted to reflect on it. Now, if I has the fancy iPaq and also the job where I'm supposed to use it in a certain way, or my boss always wanted to show me new handheld (PocketPC) apps they found (or demanded that I join in handheld wireless gaming), I would also run WinCE, but not without wincing ( = I have not been following the iPaq line too closely, but I know there's another member of our group who also just got one of the most recent iPaqs. The trouble, as I see it, for adoption/migration of linux on these devices, is that you cannot dual-boot, and that they are extremely well-designed interface and operability out-of-the-box. Thus, very few people have the motivation to undo "a good thing"... plus it feels so risky on something so small and expensive, eh? BTW, if you really think it is a doorstop, I have some doors.... plus, there is the Doors of Expression booth at the country fair -- they don't need stopped, but cool toys are definitely a plus!! Regards and good linux luck, Ben Barrett PS - I have an old handheld with will run a port of uClinux, but I don't think the sound is supported, and ... yeah, it doesn't do a whole lot, for me esp. since there is no network although plucker would work nice, it runs a 75MHz MIPS processor, if anyone is really hungry for a project I could lend it out for a while, but would want it back at some point. It does have a serial connection, I wonder what it would take to use it for some sort of data collection (webcam, microphone, or other sampling) Contact me off-list if any of you want to borrow said device, a Vtech Helio... On Tue, 8 Jul 2003 09:05:00 -0700 "baggab" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: | Mr O | | I was interested in what you said about Canon. PDAs, like Zaurus, are | cool but I have given up on this category. I am still working with | Winbloze and Outlook mainly because I have a $500 PDA that I refuse to | turn into a doorstop. It might be cool to have a short list of things | that work and things that don't under Linux. I would consider | administering this list. A possible list of categories: Device | (including components,) Linux Distro, time spent, comments. | | Brian | -- _______________________________________________ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug _______________________________________________ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
