[ILUG] iPaq & linux

[Colm Buckley]

On Friday 07 June 2002 15:45, Gavin McCullagh wrote:

> Has anyone experience with linux on an iPaq.  I know someone must as
> there was one at the linux expo.

I have Familiar Linux running on an iPaq H3630.  It works very well
and there's a choice of user interfaces; one based on X and one based
on Qt.  I use the Qt interface (Qtopia).

However, I don't actually *use* it for anything much; the hack value
is quite good, and the Qtopia PDA applications are decent enough
without being spectacular, but I just don't have much use for a PDA.

> I'd like if possible to ask for opinions about how useful one of
> these things is with linux in practice.

The iPaq with Linux is no less convenient than the iPaq with WinCE, in
my opinion - however, neither approach the convenience of a Palm
device; the iPaq is just too bulky to easily carry around.

> Without a keyboard is a terminal not somewhat inconvenient?

Yes.  One gets used to the gesture-based system quite quickly, but
it's never going to be anything like the speed of a keyboard.  I can
sustain about 1-2 characters per second using the Qtopia input
systems.

> What editors are practical?

Well, there's a decent enough "noetpad" style editor with Qtopia, and
there's vi of course.  Vi is a pain in the hole without a keyboard,
though.

For any "real" editing work, I ssh into the box and run vi in an xterm
on my desktop box.

In summary, it works and it's cool, but the form factor of the iPaq
itself is the problem for me.

               Colm
                  
-- 
Colm Buckley : Systems Architect at NewWorldIQ
Personal : colm at tuatha.org | +353 87 2469146 | www.colm.buckley.name
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