On 25/09/09 00:10, Chris Dennis wrote: > > Hello Folks > > > > I've just stumbled across a news item[1] which mentions LiMo[2], > > apparently "the first truly open, hardware-independent, Linux-based > > operating system for mobile devices". > > > > Vodafone have just announced a new phone that will run LiMo; their > > page[3] manages not to mention Linux at all, of course. Or a price. > > > > Any thoughts about how LiMo compares with Android[4]? Or any of the > > other shiny toys that are 'coming soon'[5]?
LiMo [1] has been going for a while now and is very common in Japan and other SE Asia countries. The main players are Motorola, Panasonic and Samsung. If you want to buy one in this country go for any of the Motorola smart phones such as the MOTOROKR E8. Altogether LiMo has been shipped on > 40 handsets with total sales in the 10's millions (I guess: I could not find an actual number). LiMo has a low profile partly because the manufacturers don't mention Linux anywhere - in fact they don't say anything about the operating system in any of their phones. Andriod is the new kid on the block, with a rather different agenda to LiMo. Google want to create a platform to run their applications and to have an app store like Apple. Any Android phone can participate. True there is only the one Andriod phone at the moment but that is going to change real soon. Expect a flood of them by Christmas and for it to appear on Netbooks and set top boxes early next year. Believe me, Android is going to be big. [2] The question is: is Android really Linux? It certainly is not GNU/Linux because all the GNU components have been replaced with BSD licensed equivalents - for example the c library, bionic, replaces glibc. The programming environment supported by Google is Java with 'C' a poor relation. I don't think C++ is supported at all. The other change is that the kernel is a heavily patched 2.6.27. The patches are available but have not been merged upstream. Hopefully they will one day, but the Google developers have been criticised for developing everything privately and then dumping large patches without much discussion. Is Android a good thing? Probably, yes. It has got a lot of attention in the embedded Linux world (the one I inhabit) and may form a nucleus for standardisation, which is a big drag on embedded Linux at the moment. Final comment: whether it is Android or not, the future of mobile devices is Linux. When you think about it, there are only a few options: Symbian (only for Nokia - who seem to be moving towards Linux anyhow - see the N900 and similar), Mac OS X (only for Apple - and it is a BSD core), MS Windows Mobile (fill in your own comments here) or Linux. Which is the cheapest and most cross platform? Which one do you think handset manufacturers will adopt? Bye for now, Chris Simmonds [1] http://www.limofoundation.org/ [2] http://www.embedded-europe.com/220100741 -- Chris Simmonds 2net Limited ch...@2net.co.uk http://www.2net.co.uk/ -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------
