Re: [iPAQ] What to buy with an iPaq?

On Monday 19 April 2004 06:24, tom wa quoth thusly:
> Basically I want a decent amount of storage and a WiFi card. Am I
> able to do this with just a 38xx and a PCMCIA 'jacket'?

I should think so, depending on your definition of "a decent amount of
storage". With SD cards now available up to 1GB capacity, you can stuff
quite a lot into that little slot ;)

> I'm hoping to use an Orinoco card in the PCMCIA slot

Judging by the amount of traffic on the list about various WiFi
problems, I'd guess you'd want to select this card carefully, but if
you do that you should be fine. (This is not an area I have any
personal experience in, however).

> and an MMC card for my storage.

The Familiar kernel now supports Secure Digital (SD) cards (on 3800
models only) as well. These seem to have largely "taken over" from
MMC's and AFAIK they are available in larger capacities too.

> Is it possible to use the removable media as the rootfs or
> does this need to be on the internal flash?

This is a tricky one. I believe that it is technically possible, but
I've never done it that way. It makes more sense to me to leave the
root FS in the on-board flash and just mount big chunks of it (/usr,
for example, and possibly /home) on the card. That way you're not
wasting the 32MB of on-board flash and you don't have to mess about
with pivot root or anything. You also stick closer to the "standard"
Familiar setup this way.

> On a less Linux related note, is the extendability of the iPaq at
> it's limit with a jacket, or would I also be able to add a
> thumb/foldable keyboard?

Some (most?) keyboards attach to the serial port, which is still
available with a jacket attached. I believe Familiar even supports some
IR keyboards too, but I don't know much about that.

-----------------------------
/"\
\ /    ASCII Ribbon Campaign
 X      against HTML e-mail
/ \
Received on Sun Apr 18 22:09:38 2004