> Simple question #0 before I flash away Windows CE on my iPaq: do people
> find a Linux iPaq useful as a PIM? I know that there is Mingle, but is
> there a convenient set of apps for tasks, calendar and contacts? I see
> that there is QPE, without an email client...
Personally? No, not yet. But then, that's not why I bought the device and
put Linux on it. I did so because I'm hoping to help *make* Linux on iPAQ
useful as a PIM -- and as a whole lot of other things, as well.
But, at the risk of putting words in people's mouth (and with the
understanding that anyone who feels otherwise will shout me down :-), I
would say that Linux-on-iPAQ is not ready to be a PIM.
The irony is that there *are* some pretty good PIM programs for Linux on the
desktop; but all of these are too big -- either in terms of screen
real-estate or in terms of storage requirements for program and libraries.
Even the QPE stuff -- which *looks* incredible, I have to admit -- is still
extremely rudimentary, in part because it's not *supposed* to be a complete
PIM suite, but rather, a set of example programs to enable others to write
one.
> Simple question #1: is there an email client in any of the Familiar
> ipkg's that would enable me to use a CF modem to dialup my ISP, download
> my POP3 email and read it (with the ability of saving attachments)?
I don't think there's an ipkg for such a thing yet, but just about anything
that runs on Linux ought to work to some degree. At the very least, mutt
should work (but I personally wouldn't want to use mutt with a stylus).
The Wiki contains a couple of mentions of clients that seem to work well,
but I haven't tried any of them -- email sync isn't something I care about,
personally.
> Simple question #2: what are the care and feeding instructions for a
> Linux iPaq? Under WinCE, I turn it on and off while using and recharge
> it every day or so. I've read somewhere that, even with power off, I
> have 8 hours between recharges or else poof.
Linux does seem to use up power a bit more quickly than WinCE is reported
to, at present. People appear to be actively studying the issue, and I'm
told that Familiar 0.4 is significantly better than its predecessors.
The thing to keep in mind is that 'poof' effect will happen with WinCE as
well, because, unless you flip the little hidden switch on the bottom, the
machine is *never* 'off'. Just asleep, and while asleep, it still drains
power to keep RAM refreshed and a couple other things (I'm not even clear on
everything involved here). It's just that, at the moment, it takes longer on
WinCE to reach that stage than on Linux. Once the battery is drained,
anything not in Flash goes away.
> Simple question #4: with my 32 mb iPaq, how much free space is there to
> work with using task-familiar-complete? I would plan to keep a CF card
> for /usr/local, however, I'd need room for basic things if I needed to
> switch to a modem.
By '32 mb iPaq', I assume you mean 32 mb RAM, since that's standard; that
also means 16 mb ROM, unless you've got an Asian version or got it upgraded.
It's the ROM you really care about. task-familiar-complete fits in the 16MB
of ROM just fine -- it's designed to. It doesn't leave a lot of extra room,
but it fits. By default, you'll then see your 32 mb RAM divided into a
volatile RAM disk (which will shrink if more application memory is needed)
and actual application memory. Of course, everything in that RAM, including
the RAM disk will go away when the battery drains or if you have to reboot.
I have yet to have an 'out of memory' issue when trying to run the programs
I want to run, although I'm cheating -- I have a 3670, which means 64 mb of
RAM. I *am* finding 16 mb of Flash to be rather crowded, and plan to get a
CF or PCCard sleeve soon.
To sum up: The fact that Linux is fundamentally supieror technology to WinCE
'under the hood' does not mean it's ready for end users to play with, just
yet. I have a great deal of faith that the state of the art will advance
rapidly, but if you're looking for something you could use Right Now as a
fully functional PIM, I'm not certain Linux is ready for you, yet.
Mikey
Received on Thu Aug 23 2001 - 10:51:12 EDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Jul 25 2005 - 17:12:33 EDT