Click here to get back home

I want to get the cheapest used handheld computer and port free linux
 Home | NewsGroups | Search | About
Login Password
Register Now!
 comp.sys.handhelds    Post an article   get this group's latest topics as an RSS feed add this group's latest topics to your My MSN content add this group's latest topics to your My Yahoo content
Subject Author Date
I want to get the cheapest used handheld computer and port free linux geermeister@gmail.com 05-12-2006
Posted by geermeister@gmail.com on May 12, 2006, 10:50 am
Please log in for more thread options
 I want to get the cheapest used handheld that will support e-mail, Web
surfing, image and document viewing by loading a free linux handheld
distro to it.

Which handheld models under $100 used and which linux handheld distros?

D.


Posted by geermeister@gmail.com on May 12, 2006, 10:51 am
Please log in for more thread options
 Oh, and I plan to connect to the Internet using Wi-Fi hotspots.


Posted by Michael Wileman on May 12, 2006, 1:05 pm
Please log in for more thread options

>I want to get the cheapest used handheld that will support e-mail, Web
>surfing, image and document viewing by loading a free linux handheld
>distro to it.

>Which handheld models under $100 used and which linux handheld distros?

You can get a Jornada 680 for around that price. I have
NetBSD running on mine, including X11 and wireless. You'll
need to add a Compact Flash card to have enough memory to
install it.

Mike


Posted by geermeister@gmail.com on May 20, 2006, 9:02 am
Please log in for more thread options
Michael,

How difficult is it to put NetBSD on the Jornada? Is this the version
you use?

http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hpcmips/

I can do some coding if there are step-by-step instructions available
online somewhere.

Is the Wi-Fi technology built in or will any wireless PC card do?

Can you set the e-mail client to leave messages on the server?

Best,
David

Michael Wileman wrote:
>
> >I want to get the cheapest used handheld that will support e-mail, Web
> >surfing, image and document viewing by loading a free linux handheld
> >distro to it.
>
> >Which handheld models under $100 used and which linux handheld distros?
>
> You can get a Jornada 680 for around that price. I have
> NetBSD running on mine, including X11 and wireless. You'll
> need to add a Compact Flash card to have enough memory to
> install it.
>
> Mike


Posted by Michael Wileman on May 21, 2006, 10:38 pm
Please log in for more thread options

>Michael,

>How difficult is it to put NetBSD on the Jornada? Is this the version
>you use?

>http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hpcmips/

>I can do some coding if there are step-by-step instructions available
>online somewhere.

For the Jornada 680, you need hpcsh. Hpcmips might be for
the Jornada 720, or maybe it's hparm. I never used them,
only hpcsh. No coding is necessary. The port runs as is.
There is also a low-traffic mailing list for the port in
which at least a couple of the developers participate. Many
useful apps are also available as binaries, which is useful
because building them on a palmtop is slow, and usually
requires mounting a filesystem and swap via nfs.

Check out these sites. You'll need to load the netbsd image
to a compact flash card using another machine. You can boot
a laptop from a netbsd livecd, then put the compact flash
into a pcmcia-compact flash adapter to set up the file
system. It might also be possible to do it from a linux
machine.

Check out these sites:
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2003/06/05/Big_Scary_Daemons.html
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2003/09/25/Big_Scary_Daemons.html

>Is the Wi-Fi technology built in or will any wireless PC card do?

It's a pc card. You just need to be sure your card has a
netbsd driver. I think the Jornada still had 16-bit pcmcia,
so that might also be a limitation. My Orinoco gold card
works fine.

In some cases you might need to recompile the kernel to
include support for your wireless card. Using netbsd's cross
compile capability, you can compile a jornada kernel on any
other machine running netbsd. I have access to lots of
netbsd machines, but if you don't recompiling might take you
awhile.

>Can you set the e-mail client to leave messages on the server?

Not sure what you mean here. It depends upon which email
client you use. I use pine and connect to an imap server. I
can leave messages on the server or delete them or move them
to local folders or folders on the server.

I run X on my Jornada, but it isn't powerful enough to run
any large GUI apps.

If you're seriously considering this, I suggest reading
through the archives of the hpcsh mailing list on the web.

Mike

ps. Please don't top post.

Similar ThreadsPosted
Handheld with USB port October 26, 2005, 11:46 am
how do i use a handheld as a monitor for a desktop computer? October 27, 2005, 10:07 pm
For Sale: LG Phenom Handheld Computer August 7, 2006, 1:47 am
Using Motorola E680 cellphone as modem for computer running Linux April 4, 2005, 11:25 pm
PDA/Handheld with decent Linux support December 30, 2006, 5:54 pm
Axim X5 Serial (sync) port address March 29, 2005, 4:51 pm
IR port locked, can't reset or open! Need ASAP for Palm! January 31, 2005, 9:28 am
Fujitsu Stylistic 1200 & 2300 port replicator ? July 21, 2006, 6:31 am
PPC not showing up in Windows Explorer/My Computer October 21, 2005, 7:01 am
FA: Casio CM-100 Computer Math Calculator September 30, 2006, 10:50 pm

Our other projects:

Art Dolls, Fairies and Mermaids - Sunnyfaces.net

Roy's Linux, Programming and Search Engines messages

1-Script XML SitemapXML Sitemap