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More on the Samsung Linux Handheld 238

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-lust-after dept.
Max von H. found the following on PalmStation: "It seems Samsung is about to ship out a Linux PDA this summer, and it will be called Yopy. Neat, isn't it? " A little slow link, but definitely more interesting then most of the other data on the Samsung devices we've seen in the past. It looks like it's mimicing a lot of the wince stuff... also appears to have a camera option. Nifty stuff tho.
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More on the Samsung Linux Handheld More

More on the Samsung Linux Handheld

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  • Great idea. Anyone for a game of PDA Quake?
  • You know I've wanted something like this for awhile now. If we could get MP3 playing capabilities, maybe some voice recording (for short notes, etc), and wireless email I'd be in heaven!
  • If there was an optional cd-rom and a voodoo 3 2000 video card I would consider buying it.

  • Product info page (Score:4)

    by thing12 ( 45050 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @07:36AM (#1242860) Homepage
    http://www.sem.samsung.co.kr/eng/product/digital/p da/index.htm

  • According to this picture [gicom.de], it plays mp3s and has support for wireless email. No voice recording, though.

    It does look pretty nifty. Beats WinCE any day. *And* it plays Ricky Martin songs, so you know it's good!

    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd
  • Here [samsung.co.kr] is the link I found on Samsungs Korean site.

  • Sweet... (Score:3)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @07:38AM (#1242864)
    That looks really cool, with the web browser and the integrated video. It also apparently does e-mail and plays mp3s and whatnot, but I'd still want an xterm mode. :)

    Anyhow, here's the picture with the specs [gicom.de]. It's got a 200Mhz ARM chip (probably for low power consumption) and 32MB RAM. Anyone have more info on this?
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Well, I can't really comment too much on how I think this is going to revolutionize Linux, and push Linux over the top, but I'm sure somebody will. What I have to say about this is ... wow ... That thing looks slick.

    I'm basing this totally on aesthetics right now, as it definately appeals to my sense of what a palm-held device ought to look like. I think I've found MY next MP3 Player. Looks like ARM has gone a long way since the last time I checked its progress. Way to go.

    Taken from the specs page

    Strong CPU of High Performance

    Is anyone able to narrow that down a little bit??? I'd kinda like to know what I'm up against if I'm to use this thing for anything other than appointments and MP3s. I'd also like to know how much storage space is available on those "CompactFlash" cards anyway...

    Also, anybody have any idea why they chose to create their own 'Yopy browser'? Seems like after going to all the effort to port the OS and get ARM going, they'd just use one of the browsers readily available to choose from. The Linux scene is definately hopping with them.

    Again, ... wow ... I'm impressed.

  • Now, on the poster in this picture [gicom.de], it mentions voice recording as a feature. Silly me.

    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd

  • Windows CE! At least a bit too much for my tastes... I used both WinCE and PalmOS device, and for what I've seen on the pictures, they seem to reproduce the "Bad Things" of WinCE, like the "start bar" at the bottom of the screen, etc.

    Of course, maybe all this can be modified by the user... That would be the ultimate cool thing!! Also, anyone knows if there's writing recognition like for the Palm?

    Julyen
  • Ok, nice that it's a PDA running linux, but what can this thing do? What kind of display does it have, what kind of in/output capabilities? (i'd love to run QuakeWorld on one of those ... ;)

    btw: it isn't a slow link at all, at least, for people living in the Netherlands.

  • Another big mistake (Score:5)

    by d_pirolo ( 150996 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @07:47AM (#1242875)
    Samsung is falling into the same pitfall as the manufacturers of WinCE devices before them. Trying to cram an entire desktop operating system into a handheld is simply ludicrous. Admittedly, Linux is pprobably better suited for these purposes than CE, but it doesn't look Samsung did a whole lot to tune the interface for a PDA. As a user of both Palm and CE devices, I much prefer a simplified GUI like the Palm. It seems like this would have been possible with Linux, but the screenshots still show the dreaded Start menu. Alas, a good idea shot down by poor implementation.
  • I'm sure there was a radio button in one of those picture.
    I wonder what it will do. Possibly a radio card or something>

    WHUZZA?

    The Picture With The Button [gicom.de]

    Jayson Byrne
  • Where are all the moderators? Yoohoo, anyone home?
  • Ooh, that's neat. But it's too bad it's not a full pcmcia slot.

    --

  • Compact Flash cards are widely used in digital cameras. They're already pretty low-cost and come in relatively high capacity... A quick check here http://www.d-store.com/d-store/product/cfpricing.s htm shows that capacities up to 128MB are available ($350), and the cost is roughly linear w/size.

    I use a dinky 8mb card with my Nino 510 which helps out a lot with my five zillion avant-go subscriptions :)

    -Ed

  • Taken from the specs page

    Strong CPU of High Performance

    Is anyone able to narrow that down a little bit???

    If you look on the right side of this pic [gicom.de] it appears to have an ARM running at 206 MHz, and 32 MB RAM. Not too shabby.

    Course, to me it looks just like a WinCE ripoff but with crappy fonts (i.e. the "START/" button...), but what do I know. At least MP3 and a web browser are nice.
  • What's with the "cute" penguin mascot?
  • How hard would it to put a word ignore in our prefrences? With defautls of "Natalie Portman", "hot grits" and "beowulf", and an excessive caps ignore? If a post contains any of the words, it doesn't get displayed, regardless of the score.

    Then I could read the couple decent AC posts without having to read at +2 and hoping some poort sap that reads at 0 or 1 moderates them up.

  • Compact Flash (Score:4)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @07:59AM (#1242886) Homepage
    Compact Flash [compactflash.org] type II currectly goes up to 320 MB [simpletech.com]. And unlike so-called SmartMedia, when larger capacities become available, you don't need to upgrade your hardware to use them.

    --

  • Jesus.. 200Mhz and 32mb is a lot. I could run Apache on it... A wireless pocket Web server!
  • Finally, someone came out with a PDA that has a button arrangement for playing games. :) Very similar to a gameboy...
  • Does anyone know where I can find some better specifications for this unit? I looked on the Samsung website (http://www.sem.samsung.co.kr/eng/product/digital/ pda/index.htm), and it said the CPU was a"Strong CPU of High Performance". That's great, but what speed is it?

    The reason I ask, is it would be pretty easy (?) to run the distributed.net client(s), and if it has a reasonably fast processor, it wouldn't be a waste.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Neat, thanks!

    So that's that the "Embedix Browser" looks like...

    It scares me that this machine is more powerful than my old P133. Man, did it suck before X had decent Mach64 support, and I could only run it in 320x200. I guess that's something like this PDA will be, except without a real keyboard...

    It entertains me that Microsoft had to make an entire new OS to do this, whereas Linux had an ARM port, and can be stripped down sufficiently without creating a new API. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • That screen had a freakin' start button on it. What the heck? You take Linux and some version of X, and you have a million and two options, and what do they do? The put a start button on it? I've read that even wince won't have the start button any more because it really sucks for a PDA. Why does Samsung want one now?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The specifications (Score:5)

    by Björn Stenberg ( 32494 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:10AM (#1242899) Homepage
    Here are the specs (taken from the Samsung page and pictures):
    • 206MHz ARM cpu, running "ARMLinux"
    • 4" 240x320 16-bits TFT screen w/ backlight
    • 32MB RAM, 32MB FlashROM
    • CompactFlash slot in top
    • Built-in radio
    • MP3 and MPEG player
    • Voice recording
    • RS232 + USB serial port
    • IrDa port
    • Audio in/out jack
    • 3D sound stereo audio codec
    • 1400mAh Li-Ion battery
    • Handwriting recognition software
    • Size: 128.8 x 83.5 x 19.9 mm (H x W x D)
    • Speaker on front
  • If you look at the screen shots, one of them shows the device playing MP3's! I'm sold!
  • This thing looks great but I am worried about a couple things. It almost seems that they are trying to do too much in a little PDA. Do you really want to use all of your RAM to store 6 mp3s? Will the RAM user upgradable? And what about syncing? They show it hooked up to a MS Laptop. AM I going to have to boot into a MS Operating system to synch this, or use transfer the "extra stuff" other than the the "normal" PDA studd (The MP3s and Pictures)

  • What about apps? (Score:3)

    by Tim Behrendsen ( 89573 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:13AM (#1242904)

    While a Linux handheld would be cool in its own right, I see very few references to what applications this thing is going to run. Have they been developed by Samsung? If this is going to be a useful PDA, then I hope they are going to have to have some decent PDA-style applications to go along with it.

    I'm a little suspicious that none of the screenshots are showing any scheduling programs or other PDA-mainstays.


    --

  • Lets just hope that they: a: Provide a Linux sync client!!! b: Don't violate the GPL c: Give it networking operability!!! Call me a cynic, but the Linux community is increasingly getting screwed by companies using the kernel and abusing it. If we have to reverse engineer the comms language for this one that Samsung is going to get a big F*** you from me....
  • from the brochure visible in one of the images [gicom.de]:
    • 240x320 Backlight color screen
    • 206Mhz ARM processor
    • RS232c and USB
    • 32MB RAM, 32MB Flash Rom(?)
    • Internal Web browser
    • MP3 player funcationality (what's missing?)
    • MPEG support
    • 4Mbps IR
    • Voice Recording
    • Stereo headphone jack
    • Audio in/out jack
  • So Rob says its a slow link....imagine after it gets /.ed..

    the /. effect strikes again

  • MIRROR!!!!! (Score:3)

    by SETY ( 46845 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:17AM (#1242908)
    enjoy 10 Mbit
    yopy mirror [anagram.ns.ca]

  • Re:Word Ignore for Moderation? (Score:4)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:18AM (#1242909) Homepage
    Great idea. However, May I suggest:

    Threshold -1, Flat mode, and newest first

    One of the problems with the current mod system is insightful comments are often missed because they are so far down the story that the moderators have used up their points on trolls before they get to them.

    --

  • hmmm, would make an ideal platform for serving decss, crypto et al then.

    i *don't* like the start button.

  • Handwriting Recognition? (Score:3)

    by stickyc ( 38756 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:22AM (#1242916) Homepage
    So does this mean Samsung's got a handwriting recognition client for Linux? I wonder if they'll GPL it.

  • What good is xterm... (Score:4)

    by Iambic Pentametor ( 155674 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:23AM (#1242917)
    ...without a keyboard?

    Questions I have:

    1. Does a keyboard peripheral exist or is one planned?

    2. Can you get beneath the desktop? It would be great if they allowed the user to customize the interface. They could even create new interfaces later and let you switch between the one you want.

    3. The battery is listed as 1400mA Recharge Li-Ion. Has anyone heard any estimates of how long it lasts? (esp. when used as a continuous MP3 player.)

    4. I want the power! Can the user trash features they don't want to make room for features they do? (If I don't get the camera, I don't want the baggage.)

    5. Okay, if I do want the camera, am I stuck with just one choice? Price?

    Nitpicking aside... looks way cool.

    Work as if you don't need the money,
    Love as if you've never been hurt, and
    Dance as if no one's watching.
  • Do tell me thats not who I think it is, because if it is, you're being remarkably stupid.

    -----------------------

  • Oh man. I just bought a Palm IIIx a little over a month ago. Does anybody know of a Linux replacement for PalmOS? On a funnier note....check out promo picture http://www.gicom.de/yopy/dsc00359.jpg Nothing like promoting a Linux based PDA, right next to a laptop running MSIE, with the Windows 95 safe logo in the corner ;)

    Just wondering, how did this post get rated -2?


  • I would assume the compact flash slot in the top is different than storage space, and thus you can swap out compact flash just like removable storage. i.e. one for apps, one for games, one for mp3's, etc. This is one of the things I really liked about the Newton, it had two pc card slots for extra swappable storage.

  • Stuffing linux into a PDA (Score:3)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:32AM (#1242928)
    When you hear about something like this, you really have to ask yourself, is it practical? Linux is a UNIX. No matter how slimmed down, it still carries a lot of UNIX baggage. It still has a lot of complexity that a PDA really doesn't need. MS has fallen into the same trap by shoe-horning windows into PDAs and ended up with the monstrosity that is WinCE. Even in text mode, Linux needs about 4 meg to run comfortably. Thats great when you have a 32 meg RAM PC, but think about it, that 32 meg is mostly going to storage for apps. So in the end, you really end up with about 8 meg or so, and if half that is taken up by the OS, that leaves precious little for the OS. PDAs are in a strange position. They are too big for a PalmOS type OS, but too small for a desktop or laptop OS. Instead of shrinking the desktop OS, doesn't it make sense to enlarge the small OS? I would think that a better starting point for a device like this would be QNX. The kernel is 32K, includeds networking, and Photon is really small and fast. Of course you still have the problem that make WinCE handhelds a pain to use. The desktop metaphor reeks on a 4" screen! Ideally, you'd have a taskbar with a start menu type thing, and would switch apps just by clicking on the taskbar. Throw out the rest of this desktop metaphor. There is a reason that palms are so popular; the interface fits on a PDA. It seems to me that Palm, GeOS, and Netwon are the only ones who ever "got it."
  • It's not hard to figure out what is does when they've got all the specs on the site along with screenshots of nearly all its functions. Notice also that what I'm criticizing in particular is not the hardware, but rather the GUI, which is easy to see in the pix. It simply doesn't appear to fit the needs of a true PDA user. On the other hand, if you can customize and/or replace the interface, I may change my opinion.
  • I was just trying to figure out does Hand Writing mean Handwriting like the Newton's or (Full Handwrinting Print, or Cursive) like the Palm's Graffiti. I am hoping that it is more like the newton. Also, does this thing use it's own display mechinism, or is it X? I would immagine it would just take up too much memory or the 32 megs to do it that way, or maybe framebuffers? One last thing, could I put standard linux stuff on it like gcc, it would be fun to be able to have a neat portable compiler like that, I only wonder how long it would take to compile the kernel on that thing?
  • Well... Everyone's already done that with Transmeta's products... What's the difference? Or is it just that someone was actually skeptical about something baring the "L" word in it's name or description?

  • Ick (Score:2)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    It's got a start bar. Please tell me you can disable that...
  • ...and how much do you think it costs?
  • About the poor sap reading at 0 to mod them up, ALL moderators should read at -1. Never moderate at any other setting. I think when you have mod points, your screen should defaul to -1, flat mode.

    How about -2. There is a post at score -2 in this article, search for it if you don't believe me.

  • Where were the pictures taken? What show? When? And the two most important questions: When will this be available and how much?


    (although I get a feeling that the first 100 off the line will be going to VLNX/ADVR and /.)


    Excuse me, but it is hard to type with all the drool gushing on my keyboard....

  • Then you stand to lose the context of the conversations. Many comments refer to other comments that they're not directly attatched to. ALso there's a sort of learning process... People start a conversation with lots of questions and as the facts are filled in, the whole picture gets clearer. But just reading the answers to the questions prior to them being asked doesn't really show them in their full light.

  • There should be a point of moderation where this post is deleted

    Like -2, Then these trolls will get pissed and stop posting if they can't view thier own comments

  • Keep in mind you don't have a hard disk. Without a large CF card, you may end up using a portion of RAM as storage.

  • What I think... (Score:4)

    by DNS Error ( 106360 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:50AM (#1242944) Homepage
    The way I see it, it all comes down to what you can do with it. You could put linux on a toaster if you wanted to but what would be the point? If you can actually use it LIKE linux, on this pda then that's great, but I think realisticly that all the os is probally going to be on a rom somewhere leaving you with no customization maybe meaning that you are stuck running KDE, Gnome or what ever they want you to.

    Now as for all this talk of playing quake or other games, I don't think it would be very good just for the fact of the strange resolution that it probally has, and that there are only two buttons and a directional type pad, would make it bad to play.

    All I have seen on this is the pictures on the link from this story, and the info on samsung's page, but from what I can see, it looks just like Samsung is trying to hop on the Linux bandwagon.

    It does look like a nice palmtop though, so it might be a good product. I'm just worried about the actual customizability.
  • I couldn't help but notice--not only does the GUI look exactly like WinCE, even the hardware looks like a WinCE PDA (judging from what I've seen of my friend's Cassiopeia). Most of the buttons seem to be the same. The select dial and escape but are identical, right down to the labels, to those on the Cassiopeia.
  • From all that I can find on ARM's and Samsung's website, it appears that the CPU in the machine is some member of the ARM9 family, probably the
    ARM9E-S, because it includes DSP instructions. The spec sheet for the PDA says it has a 3D audio codec (probably dolby because the ARM9 dsp can handle that) plays MP3s and MPEG video, all of which the ARM9E-S is perfectly suited to do. You can go too this website http://www.arm.com/Pro+Peripherals/Cores/ARM9ES/
    to find out some more about the CPU. Its a really nice CPU, puts out about 200 something MIPS and uses about 1.3 or 2.5 mW/MHz depending on the what voltage its running at.
  • Well... then you know your pages are cached!

    One time Ultima 7 pissed me off (seeked to the disk too much) and I had too much RAM (32MB back then) so I loaded into a ~17MB compressed RAM drive, and then I didn't have to listen to it access the disk anymore. RAM drives are cool. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • I'm sorry but when a company says "Strong CPU of High Performance" they don't know shit. Just think of a 400Mhz Transmeta handheld running x86 programs.........now who wants a Samsung?
  • Decent AC posts? now there's an oxymoron..
  • But it looks gnarly. Pretty close, better in fact, than my Ultimate Gadget [tripod.com] I made last year.
    I wonder how much my car is worth...?

    .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._ .:*~*:._.
  • While I am truly excited about getting my hands on one of these, I would really have wished for a bit bigger screen.. I am a trusty Newton user, simply because it is the ultimate tool for handwritten notes, not just because of it's recognition engine, but simply because, it has the perfect size for taking digital notes...

    back to reality, and a device with a future :)

    what are the possibilities for a handwriting recognizer to run under Linux?
    Does such an app exist... and if so is it free?

    Is it at all feasable to waste space and time with such an engine for such a small screen size...

    I have previously had a PalmPilot, and while i was very satisfied with it, I never really used it for taking notes... does anybody have some good or bad experiences with taking notes on a screen of this size??
  • OK, Samsung. This is probably the single coolest PDA I've ever seen. Period. But, that being said, a few things need to be done before it's pushed out to the masses.

    First, the User Interface is a disaster. The Start button makes me sick and the fonts look like a throw-back from the DOS days. And it might be a good idea to interface through USB, as Linux 2.3 [soon to be 2.4] supports USB. Win98 supports USB. [Free, Net, Open]BSD[i] supports USB as well.

    And maybe you should chat with the XMMS team before you finalize your MP3 player's interface. It looks kind of gawky [gicom.de].

    But, look. It's an awesome CPU. Nice and healty memory, and look at that LCD!

  • Actually it does run some sort of web server, as one of the shots show an url (partially visible) like alhost/foo/bar, where alhost would apparently be localhost - dunno if it really connects to itself via tcp/ip, though.
  • When you hear about something like this, you really have to ask yourself, is it practical? Linux is a UNIX. No matter how slimmed down, it still carries a lot of UNIX baggage.

    No, Linux has a lot of new Unix baggage. Remember Unix was devloped on a machine with 40K words (I think 80K bytes) of memory. It has grown quite a bit over the years, but don't make the mistake of thinking Unix == big-bloated-OS.

    Now, I expect even a trimmed down Linux to take a lot more space then PalmOS, and it looks like the Samsung PDA hasn't learned the lessons of Palm, so the apps may not be what you want, and that start button definitly isn't as nice as a full screen launcher plus a few buttons for extramly common programs.

    ...QNX. The kernel is 32K, includeds networking, and Photon is really small and fast.

    The QNX kenrnel is indeed very small. However the 32K kernel includes context switching, semaphores, and (non-network) nessage passing. No TCP/IP, no GUI, no filesystem, no serial ports, no way to talk to a user at all. Once you add the same sort of things PalmOS has QNX starts taking up real space.

    It seems to me that Palm, GeOS, and Netwon are the only ones who ever "got it."

    As a former Nokia9000 owner (GeOS PDA/phone), I have to say GeOS wasn't bad there, but the Palm was much better. Of corse GeOS started off as a desktop platform, so if they can make the transition, why can't Linux?

    P.S. the sukyest thing about the Palm is that a buggy app can not only crash the whole machine, it can destroy data (since it is all in RAM, and there is no MMU). Hopefully the ARM Samsung chose has a MMU, and they use it.

  • Re:Another big mistake (Score:3)

    by kapper ( 133093 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @09:25AM (#1242957) Homepage
    I agree, that it is insane to cram a full windows/gnome like interface on to such a small screen, but there is nothing wrong with a solid OS underneath...
    I personally use a Newton as my main PDA, and while it's interface is beautifully simple, the OS underneath is in fact very advanced. It is fully object oriented (based on a self like language), and has all the needed features like a good device driver architechture, multi threading etc etc....

    Hopefully we will be able to use their hardware, and provide our own gui... would be nice to finally get a worthy replacement of the newton :)

  • USB? (Score:4)

    by krokodil ( 110356 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @09:31AM (#1242958) Homepage
    Hi!

    It mentions USB port in specs. I am wondering
    does this USB port allows only to connect this
    PDA to computer, or does it also allows to
    connect various devices to PDA?

    Connecting USB keyboard or ZIP drive
    could be pretty cool option!

  • First, Linux doesn't even need 4MB if you strip stuff you don't need. (ext2fs, isofs, ipx, you get the pictures.) I must say that I don't know what the situation is with the 2.2 (or 2.3) series, but I've seen low-resource distributions based on 1.1-series that need only as little as 2MB, and still have the stuff needed for running your computer ;).

    What is the idea with having a real OS in it, then? The application base! Easy to develope! Anyone could just get a cross-compiling gcc and port their favourite hello-world application over. And if this thing ever gets a keyboard, I can see emacs ported over ;).

    Of course, there are small os'es that provide POSIX interface (isn't QNX one of these?), but still, it's less hassle to port from exactly similar environment.

    About usability (desktop) - hey, I don't care, I could write my own. (And somebody will almost certainly write a palm3-clone for this thingy.)

  • Just wondering, how did this post get rated -2?

    Well, if you take a good look at his post, you'll see that he mentioned both Internet Explorer and Windows 95, yet he did not even make one juvenile anti-Microsoft comment. You see, we're at Slashdot, and that kind of behavior is just unacceptable here. Hope this helps.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Well, it is slow because they use 1024x768 full color jpegs, aparently compressed at a relatively high quality setting.
  • First: A disclaimer. I know admittedly little about the hardware, etc in these things, so I know now how accurate the following statement will be.

    That said, this might very well be another possibility in some ideas I have been tossin around for a wearable linux based machine I plan to build over the summer. My previous plan called for using some pc104 boards and building a cheezy led based i/o device till i could afford a spiffy glasses mount. With this, I could use the color screen when I really needed that functionality, yet still have the leds for my more minute to minute uses. More importantly, though, will I be able to hack a way to hook up a twiddler to this thing for typing? And for that matter, how open will the interface be? I might want to hack around the windoze based interface and get something much more basic and fvwm-like to save resources for other things, like context-aware applications and the such.

    Just my $0.02US... I'd appreciate any feedback from those who might be more knowledgeable about these things.


    Tell a man that there are 400 Billion stars and he'll believe you
  • Goodness..

    This was posted the day I got my visor to sync under 2.3.48! :)

    Well now I have to save enough money to buy a Linux PDA instead of the still to be anounced color visor :)

    Enjoy
    --

  • What a PDA should be (Score:3)

    by spoonboy42 ( 146048 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @10:07AM (#1242969)
    Just thought I'd share a couple of ideas with you about what I think the ideal features of a PDA are, and what samsung got right (plus a few things they got wrong).

    First, a PDA should definately run Linux, or maybe NetBSD. These are pretty much the 2 most scalable OSes out there (at least in the downward direction) that don't sacrifice any of the functionality or compatibility you get on larger systems. Having a unified platform between the desktop and the handheld is important for developers, and neither wince or PalmOS does this.

    Plus, Linux is extremely stable, which is very important in the embedded market. Think if you're on a vacation and your PDA fails. "Darn honey, my handheld just crashed. I've lost the road map, our music for the car, the photos we took at the grand canyon, and my notes for my meeting on Monday." Not a good thing.

    Secondly, the interface should not be a "desktop-clone". Multiple cascading menus are far too much clutter for a PDA screen. The UI should be simple and intuitive and targeted for handheld applications, not desktop ones. PalmOS does a very good job of this. Wince does not. It's my opinion that PDAs should use some version of X so that development is easy, but none of the current window managers are going to do very well on such a small screen, so a new interface is necessary.

    Thirdly, the device should have advanced multimedia and productivity capabilities. It should have things like an MP3 and movie player. It should have a word processor and a spreadsheet. It should definately have a graphical web browser. Wince has these things, PalmOS doesn't. It's my belief that a Linux PDA should have all of these applications, but they should have a much simpler interface than their desktop cousins.
  • more important :
    where the heck is the rj45 ethernet port ? i'd love to have plug and play ethernet connectivity built into it.
  • You know - you could modify the palm pilot emulator to run full screen on this device and map the buttons to match the palm's and you can have your PalmOS on a better platform ;-)
  • lineo's going to develop the apps for this thing. check out http://busybox.lineo.com and http://tinylogin.lineo.com (off the top of my head) for some of the stuff.
  • Well, he who is afraid to reveal his name, I have in my past used Linux, I own 2 WinCE devices (nino 500s), and 2 Palm Vxs. I must say that WinCE is GARBAGE. Its too damn slow, poorly constructed, and just generally lame.

    I'm TOTALLY sure that the linux pda will SLAY any WinCE device.

  • My Opinion (Score:3)

    by Uart ( 29577 ) <feedbackNO@SPAMlife-liberty-property.com> on Sunday February 27, 2000 @10:26AM (#1242977) Homepage Journal
    This is great BUT!

    -Will it sync with Linux?
    -When/Where can i get the source?
    -looks a good deal bigger than my PalmVx.
    -seems more aimed at portable multimedia than PDA

    If i bought one it would not replace my palm. It would however complement it nicely. Although Yopy can do PIM stuff, it would seem more useful as an MP3, portable video, radio, and internet device. BTW, i like how it will use a mobile phone to connect to the internet instead of requiring that you buy a new device and pay exorbitant prices for mobile internet.

  • Re:beowolf? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you evenly place the full weight of beowulf on to back of this pda, it should support it. Don't let it stand on the screen though!
  • Keep in mind that if it has a USB port, you can add just about any device you want. Keyboard, mouse, new camera, etc.
  • Just a little rebuttal...

    What "baggage" are you referring to? Unix is fine for PDAs because you can simply remove those pieces you don't need. And 32M of RAM is more than plenty - lots of people ran Linux on 486's with 8 or even 4M.

    As far as why Linux is a good choice, it's because the standard is there and people are familiar with it. Jumping to something like QNX just slashes your developer base. As well, think about the future - even two years from now, that processor is going to double in power and the RAM will increase, and pretty soon all the reasons why you chose QNX have dissappeared.

    If I'm going to be carrying something like this around in my pocket, it better be tailorable to exactly what I want it to do. Linux is the way to make this possible.

  • And that button should take you into EMACS.

  • Re:Price? (Score:4)

    by mali ( 157259 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @10:51AM (#1242987)
    The GMate guy at CeBIT expected the price to be in the US$400-600 range, depending on memory size (16/32MB or 32/32MB RAM/Flash). BTW: This 1400mAh battery is said to last about 10h ... Mali

  • ZDNet: Quartz: The Palm-killing PDA? [zdnet.com]

    Cebit is still on, go there - see the Ericsson palm sized Epoc device with bluetooth, GPS etc. See Psion demo Quartz in their stand, see Symbian demo Quartz in their stand.

  • Specifications (StrongARM SA-1110) (Score:5)

    by RobertGraham ( 28990 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @11:23AM (#1242999) Homepage
    In much the same way that the PalmPilot hardware is just the Motorola Dragonball single-chip solution, this device is from our friends at Intel: StrongARM SA-1110. You can get full datasheets at: http://developer.intel.com/desig n/strong/datashts/278241.htm [intel.com]

    The crinkly bits compared to a palm are:

    • 235 MIPS @ 206 MHz (Palm is 2.7 MIPS @ 16MHz)
    • 2.5 million transistors in 0.35 micron technology (image if they made it in 0.18 mircron!)
    • IO = USB, IrDA, serial, audio/telecom CODECs, PCMCIA, CompactFlash
    • Color/grey scales LCD at 1024x1024. However, the only touchscreens it advertises that it works with are 320x240 pixel screens.

    The pictures [gicom.de] on the original page indicate that Linux will run out of 32-megs of ROM and 32-megs of RAM. It also looks like SAMSUNG is going to try to take advantage of all the chip's features (the disappointing thing about Palm is that they didn't take advantage of all the Dragonball's features).

    The thing to remember is that Samsung is like only putting together a reference design from Intel with a reference implementation of Linux (probably from Lineo [lineo.com]) and standard off-the-shelf apps (like MP3 players) with minor modifications. The PDA-style apps are probably the Lineo PDA suite [lineo.com]. Getting all this to work well in a limitted power budget will be tough enough. The first version will probably not contain any wizbang features beyond this.

    The burning questions I have:

    • Does it come with a TCP/IP stack?
    • Does it use X Windows?
  • Compact Flash type II currectly goes up to 320 MB. And unlike so-called SmartMedia, when larger capacities become available, you don't need to upgrade your hardware to use them.

    Don't forget that you could stick an IBM Microdrive [ibm.com] in that CF slot instead :)


    -- qube
  • If this little whizbang is indeed running Linux (and, I assume, X as it seems to have a GUI) then there shouldn't be anything stopping us, the community, from getting in there and enhancing/replacing whatever we don't like.

    Don't like their GUI? Great! Write an X app to replace it.

    Makes me wonder what they're using on top of X for window management...
  • I'm hoping eventually to see palmtops with just a connector for some virtual-reality glasses. Then, you can have as complex a desktop as your electronics can support in a portable package, and without constraining the actual computing module by the shape of the output device.

    Of course, the proper input device for such a beasty is probably still under debate. If you have a complicated desktop possible, then one of those handheld cording keyboards would probably be more efficient than a stylus arrangement.
  • You may be surprised at how cheap small color LCD screens are.
    LCD's get exponentially harder to build as the size goes up...
    this means tiny ones are dirt cheap, and big ones are really expensive.

    a 1 inch color LCD screen is a only a few dollars.

  • Samsung Linux PDA, Release in May (Score:3)

    by lttlfld ( 120903 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @04:15PM (#1243030)
    Thank you for your interest .
    our product would be available by the end of May in US and Europe.
    Thanks again.

    Best Regards.

    Paul H. Yoo
    Sales & Marketing
    G.MATE, Inc.
    E-mail: paulyoo@gmate.co.kr
    Tel: 82-342-738-1241
    Fax: 82-342-738-1212
    ******************************
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Doug Littlefield"
    To:
    Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 8:50 AM
    Subject: Linux PDA

    > Looks Like a winning product.
    >
    > Where can I buy this?
    >
    > Thank you
    >
    >

  • They use W-Windows [devnull.owl.de], which is GPL'ed. Soon they will release a toolkit with an interface similar to gtk.
    -russ
  • Yes, if you read the specs, it says that it has an FM radio built-in.
    -russ
  • Cebit. 24/2/2000. Not before the end of May, and $400-$600. A competitive price.
    -russ
  • I just registered yopy.org (G.Mate has yopy.com and yopy.net). Once it hits the root nameservers, I'm gonna make a mailing list for would-be Yopy owners. The email address for subscriptions will be discuss-subscribe@yopy.org, but that won't work for another day or so.
    -russ
  • Look for a compact flash Ethernet adapter. Such things exist, although I don't remember any vendor names right now.
    -russ

  • Re:What good is xterm... (Score:3)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Monday February 28, 2000 @05:28AM (#1243069) Homepage
    1) No keyboard planned but they're listening to customer input (re G.Mate)

    2) It's Lineo's PDA software. I don't know if it's open source or not.

    3) 10 hours is one estimate I heard

    4) Hey, this is Linux. Do what you want. They're using W-windows, which is GPL'ed, so you have your freedom.

    5) No idea.
    -russ
  • I'll disagree with this vehemently. It is precisely because of good AC content that I don't set my threshhold at 1, way too many times have I seen good or funny AC quickies. I've even shot off a few myself from time to time. Trolls suck (except for the good ones, you know who you are), but it's the good ACs that cause the problem.

    --
  • http://yopy.org. Go there. Sign onto the mailing list. Do it now. Be happy.
    -russ
  • I strongly encourage everyone on /. to boycott this site and company. They are spamming people on /. about this site. I received an E-Mail this morning from this guy just because I had posted to this page about the yopy.


    Not only did this guy register a domain name that he really shouldn't have, but he is now spamming /.ers to get them to come to his site. The above post was plenty, but spamming crosses the line.

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