Linux Finds Its Way to More Handheld Devices 153
LXrider writes "The coolest new handheld to pick Linux as its OS is the Pepper Pad. This device was one of the most exciting products to be found at this year's otherwise lackluster C3 Expo in NYC. The Pepper Pad runs MontaVista Linux on a Intel XScale PXA270 (624 MHz) processor and it used for viewing multimedia, surfing the net, and controlling your home's electronics."
Yes but... (Score:1, Funny)
Free (as in beer and speech) mobile distributions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free (as in beer and speech) mobile distributio (Score:5, Informative)
We're not officially working on any other distributions at the moment but we're exploring our options in our (lack of) spare time.
Re:Free (as in beer and speech) mobile distributio (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Free (as in beer and speech) mobile distributio (Score:3, Informative)
I call bullshit. Show me a citation with working links to back up your assertion here please.
The Treo 600 works WITH NetBSD, just like it works with Linux, FreeBSD, and OSX... but the Treo 600 does not RUN NetBSD... and nobody that I know of has ported it over to do so. I would know, I manage this little project [pilot-link.org], and I'd be one of the first to find this out.
Where's The Niche? (Score:5, Insightful)
Things NOT to look for in your staff [whattofix.com]
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
I have a 5500 and would l
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
I used to have a 5500, and I thought it was pretty sweet; I enjoyed being able to write and run perl on-the-go. Then I broke the screen. Oh well.
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
Are there any other wonderful resources for iPaq Linux?
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
Wireless ISPs buy webpads. There is also an industrial niche as well.
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
Did you take a look at the web page link? It's definitely not marketed towards any industrial niche.
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
The original question is who buys these things... not how are these guy's marketing department failing to hit the broad side of a barn from 10 feet with a loaded scatter gun.
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where on earth is there written such a rule that computing has to be broken into such arbitrary boundaries?
If you need more than a PDA, but not everything a tablet or notebook offers, then there ya go. Don't get so hung up on how things have been before.
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
You're forgetting the fact that if you make people carry something that won't fit in their pockets, they'll probably want a full-featured notebook instead of an expensive tablet rip-off that's also a pain in the ass to carry everywhere you go.
That's why computing is broken into these "arbitrary" boundaries.
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2)
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:1, Informative)
I'm guessing that this thing will only be as successful as the after-market software environment; if they make it easy to add
Home Theater Remote + VNC (Score:2)
As the happy owner of a home theater, I have a few (8 or 9) remotes, the XBOX media player hitting the Linux Fileserver, then the amp itself, plus the various cd/tape player
I was thinking of getting a cheap (lol) tablet pc, an extensible bathroom mirror handle and hack together a nifty all-in-one appliance to control everything from my couch, including email and VNC to the rest of the network (a few pcs, including ONE windows machine)...
When you
Re:Where's The Niche? (Score:1)
PepperPad? (Score:3, Funny)
I like the packaging, and the use of open source. But for that price, I think I'll pass.
It may run Linux... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:5, Informative)
Get mplayer, the codec collection and the plugin for mozilla/firefox. You will find that you can play it back just as nicely, if not better, than in Windows. Worked like a champ for me.
If it helps:
I run FC4, nVidia-something-er-other proprietary drivers (RPM packages from ATRPMS.net) mplayer, mplayer plug-in (RPM packages from livna) and the codec collection (tarball from mplayer.hu). Most all of this done without any technical skills -- I just followed the directions from http://home.gagme.com/greg/linux/fc4-tips.php [gagme.com] --here.
Don't know how easy it is with other distros, but FC4 is a pretty easy place for me to start anyway.
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:2)
Links please.
Not everybody knows where "the" codec collection and "the" plugin is.
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:2)
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:2)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/soft ware/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx [microsoft.com]
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:4, Funny)
Pity that only 100 million people will be able to click the link and have it instantly play. Bastards.
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:2)
Re:It may run Linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, since we're going to the extreme of using woefully inadequate metaphors: What they did is more like putting up a billboard on the highway where pedestrians in a certain part of town can't see it. You can still call them or see other ads floating around, but let's pitchfork them over that one less-than-informative billboard.
does it matter what OS is running? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:does it matter what OS is running? (Score:3, Insightful)
So yes, the OS absolutely matters.
Re:does it matter what OS is running? (Score:1)
Is it just me (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get the point of taking the time to integrate a keyboard into a device like that and splitting it into a thumb-typer arrangement with itty-bitty buttons (the thumb is not the most agile or delicate of bodyparts).
Have you seen some of the features? A substandard MP3 playing jukebox, the obligatory notepad etc. Can you install linux app packages? Is there access to a shell? It doesn't seem so.
You'd have to gut it to install a linux OS that would be recognizable or put up with their own OS which doesn't exactly excite.
Re:Is it just me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Now if they'd do something about that keyboard It'd be pretty sweet.
Some media playback with VLC seems a good way to go but that 800x600 screen seems a little lacklustre.
Re:Is it just me (Score:1)
I don't get the point of taking the time to integrate a keyboard into a device like that and splitting it into a thumb-typer arrangement with itty-bitty buttons (the thumb is not the most agile or delicate of bodyparts).
While I agree that the keys seem small, the thumb actually is very agile. How else do you suppose people could hold and enter data into the device? I think the arrangement is very clever.
Over priced, Under powered (Score:5, Interesting)
1. 2.4 kernel? C'mon! 2.6 is out... we like new crap.
2. 800x600? Okay, it's good for a lot of people out there -- just not me. For something that small, I would want at least 1024x768, but a wide aspect display would be really nice too... if it had...
3. DVD playback. This device really needs DVD playback and even video out to be really cool. It needs to be that headrest DVD player *and* be a computer too.
4. 802.11g
5. USB 2.0
6. IEEE1394 (iLink, Firewire, whatever)
7. Bluetooth
A cheap laptop beats this thing all over the place except for being aimed at the consumer rather than the hacker. It would be REALLY nice if this thing could connect with a cell phone to exchange data (pictures, address book, etc) and gate itself to the internet. USB 2.0 and/or Firewire and/or Bluetooth would be among the best means by which a lot of this could happen.
For this configuration of hardware, I think they could have saved a lot of money and development time by adopting a version of Knoppix for this thing. Pull out the packages you don't want, add a few that work for this hardware and lock down the UI so that people don't need to know it's Linux and you're good to go.
An added advantage to having a DVD reader installed on this thing would be easy user updates/reloads -- it's a no brainer to insert a "factory reload" media, reboot and hold down some magical key combination eh?
Anyway... a laptop beats this and these days the price is probably better too.
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:5, Interesting)
Since you're looking for a laptop with tablet input features, I should recommend to you some of the newer Toshiba laptops.
But, since so few of you guys actually read the beginning of the article, I'll try to reiterate what this thing is useful for.
Since my PDA is so lowly, I doubt it could control my air conditioner. But, with this thing, I could hook it to every vent in the home and control the air by regions, and still have the pad with me. Or I could watch the news on it, or read it like a reusable newspaper. It reminds me freakishly of the kind of tablets you'd see on Star Trek.
Pricing is always a problem when anyone brings anything to the market. If the price is too high, the market will moderate it down. If the price is too low, the supply will dry up and prices will raise themselves. Simple economics.
Just because it's not ready for you, doesn't mean it's not ready for me.. I'd buy one to tinker with (if for nothing else), if I had the money, but I needed a laptop for college more
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:1)
Buddy you sound like my SO.
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:2)
I have the Toshiba M200 and I can confirm that it does an excellent job with both XP Tablet and Ubuntu. Nice keyboard, too.
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:1)
Admittedly, the hard drive in the pepper pad is very tempting (the 770 only has RSMMC cards for expandable memory), but not for $500 more...
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:5, Informative)
Who's going to provide support for Knoppix? You? We're a step ahead of you in that department, we already have a Linux that works, we control what packages are included, and we've locked down the UI for normal users so they don't know it's Linux underneath. Hackers can get underneath just fine if they really want, we like them.
DVD drives take up space, cost money, and use a godawful amount of power. It's a *good* thing we didn't include one, trust me.
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:1)
I'm seeing Zoomer all over again.
(The PDA that went head to head with the Apple Newton and lost)
The Newton and Zoomer failed on the market for being too big (the zoomer also suffered from poor marketting)
However times have changed. Nither the Newton nore Zoomer could do half what the Peper can.
Pepper PAD is locked down, what If I want to... (Score:2)
install your own OS? JTAG? Is there going to be
shell root access so we can make our own modifications?
Re:Pepper PAD is locked down, what If I want to... (Score:2)
You don't need to buy MontaVista; you can compile everything using Kegel's crosstool [kegel.com]. Also, all flash locations are unlockable at the OS-level by the hacker so, if you're confident, you can write your own u-boot (or whatever) to flash. Of course if you flash something bad you'll have a paperweight and will need to go in through JTAG.
Root access is available by hitting ctrl-shift-1 from within our GUI. Once you're there you can enable remote root login by setting a passwd and firing up sshd.
We also hav
Re:Over priced, Under powered (Score:2)
Re:And something else... (Score:2)
The link to purchase it, for those so inclined, belongs to none other than the one company whose spirit embodies innovation, amazon.com. I'd avoid buying it for that reason alone, although I do think that $800 for something that offers about 1/10th of a desktop for the same price is a little, um, uneconomical.
Slow News Day... (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't there a "Wor of teh World Sucks" movie review in the queue?
I looked at the Pepper Pad. Ho-hum. It's got a 20-gig harddrive, it has yesterday's WiFi (b not g) and USB (1.0 not 2.0), a Blackberry keyboard, and it runs some oddball version of Linux.
For a $200 more, you can get a G4 iBook.
Nokia 770 (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,1522,,00.html?orig=/
Re:Nokia 770 (Score:2)
The size is perfect, and it runs Linux. Now, give me a HD and put it more memory, and a terminal.
Oh, make it available in China too, and I'm willing to pay up to 800$ for that
My boss showed me pepper. (Score:2)
Re:My boss showed me pepper. (Score:2)
Re:My boss showed me pepper. (Score:1)
Re:My boss showed me pepper. (Score:2)
Re:My boss showed me pepper. (Score:2)
Actually, while this formfactor is less useful tan a laptop in some applications it is more useful in others. Sometimes the folding design of a traditional laptop gets in the way. Aside from the cost, this would be a good replacement for i-Opener style projects.
A web pad like this is sort of a lapless laptop for couch potatoes. Looks like you could use it on the couch or out on the deck (waterproof in case it gets rained on). It would also be good in a bar since it is apparently beer resistant
Re: (Score:2)
Fujitsu p1120 and Sharp mm20 are much better (Score:5, Insightful)
1) slightly lighter (2.2 pounds).
2) bigger screen (8.9 inch compared to 8.4).
3) higher resolution (1024x600 compared to 800x600)-Much better for watching 16:9 movies.
4) regular clamshell laptop design with a regular keyboard.
5) slightly better cpu, i386 architecture (transmeta crusoe 800 MHZ).
6) regular 2.5 inch hard disk. It comes with a 30 GB drive which can be replaced with a 100GB drive. Drive upgrade is very easy, only two screws.
7)Better upgradability, it has a regular cardbus slot+a mini PCI slot. Ih comes with a mini card which is a wireless b/modem combo -it can be easily replaced with a g wireless card.
8) Standard i386 architecture makes it possible to run multiple operating systems. On my current system I run
1)Suse Linux 9.3-slower than Suse 9.0, faster than Solaris 10.
2)Suse Linux 9.0-this is the fastest OS for the laptop.
3)BeOS 5.03- faster than Suse 9.3 Solaris and Windows.
4) Solaris 10 (only at 800x600 resolution)- a bit slow. To install solaris I had to put the dive on another machine; once installed solaris runs fine on p1120.
5) Win 2k (it came with winxp home)
All on a 100 gb drive.
Disadvantage : more expensive, $1199 from Fujitsu USA. Last week it was on sale at NEWEGG for $1050. The difference in features is worth the money.
Other alternatives: Sharp mm20 ($1200-1300), it is even lighter, 1.9 pounds. It has a regular 10.4 screen but has a 1.8 inch drive (20 GB) There are 1.8 inch drives up to 60GB (9.5 mm) but mm20 can only take a 7 mm drive. Right now it can be upgraded only to 30GB. It has a better CPU, efficeon 1GHZ, and 512 MB RAM. Compared to p1120 it has a big disadvantage, it is very fragile. Fujitsu p1120 is sturdy, you can drop it in a bag or purse without any problems.
Re:Fujitsu p1120 and Sharp mm20 are much better (Score:2)
Re:Fujitsu p1120 and Sharp mm20 are much better (Score:3, Interesting)
Neat ultra-portable there.
How's wireless support under the Linux installs you have on the Fujitsu? I have a Fujitsu S6210 and Suse 9.3 works like a champ with this notebook and a bog standard Intel 2200BG chipset.
Semi-OT: Suse 9.3 is the only install I've put on this notebook that I haven't had to do *any* configuration to get WPA-PSK working. Fill in your pre-shared key and take off. I've tried just about every distro and although I could get WPA working it wasn't nearly as seamless as it is in Suse 9
800$? (Score:1, Redundant)
A cheap laptop would be a better choice.
Too big for a handheld-nobody will buy it (Score:1, Insightful)
Companies scared uttering "Linux" (Score:1)
A system which was built around Linux but you can't see the word "Linux" being mentioned.
And when it comes to synchronizing - it only uses Microsoft Windows - thus even implying the system was built around the same.
"Linux" is becoming a taboo word - since they believe it implies user-unfriendliness and inflexibility.
The companies not only take but give nothing back, they feel "ashamed" of mentioning the free OS.
sorry Ignore the above (Score:1)
hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
i didn't read it, so sue me.
"Linux Finds Its Way to More Handheld Devices" (Score:1, Insightful)
Fer christ's sake, I'm a linux fanboy, but if we were to give an article to every new product that had embedded windows in it ... or even embedded linux in it, we wouldn't have room for the Dupes! This isn't interesting. not even mil
Re:"Linux Finds Its Way to More Handheld Devices" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:"Linux Finds Its Way to More Handheld Devices" (Score:2)
Quite simply, we've been too busy getting the device prepared for the consumer market to worry about advertising its hackability. At some point in the near future we'll be fully documenting the SDK and possibly an HDK but for now we're focusing on the consumer aspect.
Regarding crosstool support, we include libraries to run both apps compiled natively on the Pad, compiled using MontaVista's cross-compiler, and compiled using Kegel's crosstool [kegel.com]. There's a set of dev environment RPMs
What an ugly product!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
But this product, plain and simple, is UGLY UGLY UGLY.
It's my biggest problem with the Linux community. You need to take some lessons from Steve Jobs and the Apple community. Virtually everything I've seen in the Linux world is UGLY UGLY UGLY. OK for tech geeks, but not for nobody else.
If you really want to be mainstream, you need to change your ugly ways.
So everybody will probably think I'm just trying to get a rise out of you. Which will simply prove my point. If you don't see how ugly all of this stuff is, you don't understand why Linux -- an excellent concept -- hasn't taken off.
Re:What an ugly product!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
What? I really think you should get out more.
The combined worldwide market for desktops, servers, and packaged software running on Linux is forecast to grow at a 2003-2008 compound annual growth rate of 25.9 percent worldwide, reaching $35.7 billion by 2008.
New and redeployed PCs running Linux is a market forecast to grow to $10 billion and 17 million units by 2008 with an in
Patent pending? (Score:4, Informative)
it's HUMONGOUS (Score:2)
Re:it's HUMONGOUS (Score:1)
Calling that thing "humongous" is an insult to my IBM 370 handheld!
Clever, but pricey.. (Score:2)
It looks like a clever little device. Small, decent screen. It might be useful for some quick WWW access from the couch type stuff.
But, for $850?!? Who the hell will analyze this against all the laptop options, and decide to pay more for this limited little device, rather than going with a full laptop?
Alternative @ $300 (Score:3, Interesting)
Mobilis products [ncoretech.com] have already been covered in slashdot [slashdot.org].
I used to be in this line of work - best of luck (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work at a company that ported WinCE and Linux to StrongARM devices. Our last project was a webpad. We went out of business shortly after that.
If I had any advice to offer it would be this. Drop your price. By a lot. It's been said in this thread before a few times but your price point is all wrong. For that cash you could get a laptop. That's what sunk us. People think that a few hundred bucks is a PDA, and anything over about $500 is a laptop. So if you fall in the laptop range, you have to provide laptop functionality.
Would you buy a laptop that ran at 624Mhz with no math coprocessor or video acceleration for $850?
Another point is the hardware. Don't know much about PXA270, but the PXA255 wasn't up to video. Getting video to run on it was my job, and best I could manage was 2 or 3 frames per second. We advertised that it could run video...and in a way it could. But it totally sucked and that put customers off. If it doesn't perform well you're better off simply not promoting it as a video player.
Re:I used to be in this line of work - best of luc (Score:2)
Separation of concerns (another approach) (Score:2)
Classic Cupboardware (Score:3, Funny)
Cupboardware (n):
Any useless but superficially attractive item of consumer electonics purchased by people with too much money that is played with for two weeks and then condemned to reside in a cupboard for 18 months until being eBayed or given to the local charity shop.
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, couldn't the parent post be posted in response to almost every story on slashdot ever?
Re:The real question (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The real question (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The real question (Score:2)
Note the absurdity of the comment. The raising to meme status actually happens in the same article. What we've witnessed here, gentlemen, is the origin of a new meme. Quite an exiting time to be alive.
Re:The real question (Score:3, Funny)
I've seen it in a lot of articles lately. So why am I not surprised it was modded interesting? Obviously the bots have taken over. Moderation must be done via genetically-engineered parakeet.
Re:The real question (Score:1, Funny)
Parakeet? I'm a galah, you insensitive clod!
It's not about the OS. (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably not, because this device isn't about the operating system. Other than the mention of Mozilla, where do you see an indication that this is NOT Windows?
Yeah, it's Linux. The target user doesn't give a damn. He or she just wants instant-on web and no-brainer wireless. And MP3s that don't require one to dig for some grey file to make it work.
And the marketing doesn't even mention Gnome, KDE, RPM, or Debia
Re:It's huge (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to sound like a Zaurus fanboy, but I love the form factor of it. The Pepper Pad seems a tad too big to be able to throw in your jacket pocket and go.
Re:Ughhh... (Score:2)
Re:Ughhh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically a "Star Trek Tricorder" with a decent sized screen.
And, of course, using documented interfaces so it can be customized to whatever we want it to do.
Buying these precanned systems is often just about as useful as buying cured concrete - its already set in the way someone else molded it... not what I wanted it to be.
Re:Yes (Score:2)
1998 called, the copyright on this joke hasn't expired yet.
Less attention to advertised mainstream hardware - (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Less attention to advertised mainstream hardwar (Score:2)
Re:Less attention to advertised mainstream hardwar (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Less attention to advertised mainstream hardwar (Score:1)
Re:'Mail' application? (Score:1)
Re:'Mail' application? (Score:1)
I believe you are absolutely right. I took a peek at Apple's Trademarks [apple.com], and 'Mail' is absent from the list.
It would have been appropriate for me to have checked the list before posting nonsense.