Re: [tlug] dual boot iPAQ

[Ulrich Plate <plate@example.com>]

Jim Tittsler wrote:
> Goetz Bock is the fellow whose name I couldn't come up with at
> yesterday's meeting that has done a lot of work on making an
> iPAQ dual-boot between WinCE (in the device flash ROM) and
> Linux (in a CF card).  <http://linux.blacknet.de/ipaq/>

Thanks a lot for looking that up! As soon as I can get my greedy hands
on a spare iPaq I'll try it out. :-)

Coming to think of it, if you use a CF card to boot and everything,
isn't that a) terribly slow, b) draining your battery like there's no
tomorrow, and c) dramatically reducing the life span of that card?

Yesterday's meeting was much fun, thanks for the opportunity. Leaving
the stage of a techie gathering to a marketing fluffy like myself must
have felt bizarre for some people... :-)

In addition to the slides I'll hang out to dry on a website as soon as
I've washed the MS Powerpoint filth off, let me provide a little link
collection to Linux distributions for iPaqs I've come across.

Familiar
http://familiar.handhelds.org
The mother of all iPaq Linuces. For the initial installation I suggest
you grab your iPaq's PCMCIA sleeve and a WiFi card and go to the Linux
Cafe for a nice Latte and an hour or two of very straightforward
installation via the wireless LAN.

Intimate
http://intimate.handhelds.org
The most Linux on an iPaq, a Debian distribution as complete as possible
given the space constraints of the 1 GB microdrive they originally
designed it for,but 512 MB CF memory cards should do the trick, too
(requires about 380 MB all in all, I think). Haven't tried it, though.

mLinux 1.0 by Lisa Systems (Hamburg)
http://www.lisa.de/mlinux-download/download.html
Single download file with everything and the kitchen sink, complete with
an install script for the braindead. Don't try to find the above link
from their English language homepage, that one hasn't been updated since
March or so, and v1.0 has only been around for two weeks. The
installation is dead easy, and you'll get a complete OPIE environment.

Pixil
http://embedded.censoft.com/pixil
Supposedly a complete Microwindows environment in a 10 MB gzipped
tarball. Haven't tried it yet, and am having difficulties with the link
(worked yesterday, though). Century Software was supposed to provide the
guts for the "Royal Lin@example.com" vaporware PDA, IIRC.

AXE Sikigami
http://www.sikigami.com
Japanese distribution based on Familiar and some Red Hat stuff with
Gnome panel/task/list/applets and the famous Sikigami GUI with its own
PIM suite and Nunome Japanese handwritten character input engine. v2.0
just came out six weeks ago. Check their website, that's a very creative
joint for embedded Linux and RTOS on impossible platforms. Nice people,
too, met them at a trade fair in Makuhari once.

Melon
http://melon.10art-ni.co.jp
Sikigami on a CF card, basically. Boot and root in two images you just
need to write to the CF, and off you go, stuff it in any iPaq you find
lying around and enjoy the terrified cries of their owners. :-) They
used to sell this for 9,800 yen, but now it's available only for free...
Cheers
Ulrich Plate

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