Re: [iPAQ] Re: [Linux] pocketlinux

> Sender: ipaq-admin@handhelds.org
> From: Jim Pick <jim@pocketlinux.com>
> Date: 22 Aug 2000 00:05:50 -0700
> To: "Muller, Edward" <emuller@painewebber.com>
> Cc: "'jg@pa.dec.com'" <jg@pa.dec.com>,
> Andre Schroeter <A.Schroeter@dkfz-heidelberg.de>, linux@handhelds.org,
> ipaq@handhelds.org
> Subject: [iPAQ] Re: [Linux] pocketlinux
> -----
> "Muller, Edward" <emuller@PaineWebber.com> writes:
>
> > I played around with Pocketlinux for about 1/2 an hour over the
> > weekend...Looks like it has a lot of promise....
> >
> > One of the things I noticed is that they have init (or something
> > else, but most likely init) run pppd....This simplifies a ppp setup,
> > but means you can't get a serial connection to the ipaq....
>
> Yep, I added it to the inittab. For our purposes, it was nicer to
> have it start up automatically, so we could telnet in immediately
> (rather than having to start up ppp manually). Feel free to gunzip
> the ramdisk image, mount it using a loop filesystem, and tweak it
> however you see fit.
>
> > Does their X implimentation of Java really run that much faster
> > under X?
>
> I don't know. We haven't tried running it under X on the iPaq.
> Theoretically, X should be a bit slower -- it's got more overhead,
> although possibly not that much. Mostly, we aren't using X due to
> memory consumption considerations.
>

I think you will find that the X server is MUCH faster than any other
graphics you have for the device. Keith's frame buffer code is amazingly
good.

From what I saw, you were CRAWLING on the screen, relative to what X can
do.

Memory is no longer an issue with v0.12. There is oodles of memory available
for apps. Switching over to CRAMFS makes tons available. Even without
working at all, there is of order 8 megabytes free in the buffer cache
while running our first Gnome application, that happens to be statically
linked. And we haven't even started to try to save memory.

The X server is only 600K of text: while running, even with backingstore
and save unders enabled, it is taking less than a megabyte (and unused
pages can get reclaimed by the paging system, now that we are using
cramfs).
                                - Jim

--
Jim Gettys
Technology and Corporate Development
Compaq Computer Corporation
jg@pa.dec.com