<span class="gmail_quote">On 7/12/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">J D Freeman</b> <<a href="mailto:dt@quixotic.org.uk">dt@quixotic.org.uk</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-left: 0.80ex; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex">
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<br>Hash: SHA1<br><br>On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 04:06:35PM +0100, Karl Lattimer wrote:<br>> Yep nokia is your best bet. OpenMoko just isn't mature enough, and I<br>> don't think it actually has opensync or syncml support yet.
<br><br>Hold on, is that you agreeing with me?<br><br>> > Linux is a general purpose OS<br>> > which works well on general purpose computers,<br>> "<br>><br>> That's a logical fallacy if ever I saw one! Just because Linux is a
<br>> general purpose OS doesn't mean it should be used on general purpose<br>> computers.<br>><br>> In point of fact, general purpose OS generally means something which can<br>> easily be transported across architectures.
<br><br>Yes, which means it can do many things to a varying degree, but not<br>necessarily do any of them well. Compare contrast: Leatherman,<br>lindstroom wire cutters.<br><br>> > Whilst its not open source (boo his) Epoc is a
<br>> > far better OS for this sort of platform. That said I quite like VX works<br>> > for embedded stuff, but thats mainly cos its very well tried and tested<br>> > (hint the two nasa mars rovers run on it IIRC).
<br>><br>> WRT VXworks and Epoc, Epoc isn't exactly alive is it, last release IIRC<br>> was in 2003 running on the psion revo. Which was actually a general<br>> purpose computer built on a OS which was designed for low power embedded
<br>> applications, doesn't have a full API stack, you must re-invent the<br>> wheel in order to get much custom stuff working on it. Do they even sell<br>> licenses for Epoc32 anymore? As PSION are out of business and Symbian is
<br>> the evolved version of Epoc.<br><br>Sorry, thats me being an old fart again, epoc is now called symbian. Its<br>worth noting that Psion are still in business, just not selling to the<br>consumer.<br><br>As for the full API, that is both a feature and a bug. Depending on how
<br>you want to look at it.<br><br>> VXworks is even worse, a friend of mine who works with both ucLinux,<br>> Linux 2.6 for embedded and VXworks daily does nothing but complain about<br>> how many missing kernel level and user space API's there are. For
<br>> instance you'll find that there is no such thing as libc on VXworks,<br>> they have a base library set, but it doesn't cut the mustard. VXworks is<br>> crippleware essentially which means the developer needs to do a lot more
<br>> work in order to get something running.<br><br>Again, feature or bug. If you are using VXworks on something, like say a<br>robot or a highly embedded system, you probably don't want to be using a<br>general libc the performance (bare in mind many things are going to be
<br>real time) doesnt cut it.<br><br>Horses for courses.<br><br>> Compare this with Linux running on embedded devices, Linux has an<br>> enormous library of tools and apis which can be implemented by a<br>> programmer on any platform thanks to GCC/glibc and the way the Linux
<br>> kernel is developed.<br><br>Yes, an enormous library. Thats really useful on my embedded sytem with<br>half a meg of ram.<br><br>> With all that said, 80% of new photocopiers run Linux, 80% of network<br>> printers run linux, 80% of soho routers run linux. Thats the 80/20 rule
<br>> for you, with a larger developer community, a larger API stack, many<br>> embedded device stack elements etc... I think that its a better bet for<br>> Linux to run on all hardware than VXworks or Epoc and I think you'll
<br>> find that 8 out of 10 developer cats agree.<br><br>And how many desktop machines run windows? Just cos many people do it<br>doesn't mean its the best way of doing it.<br><br>J<br>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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<br><br>As for 'Cool Mobile Phone' and Linux, Kevin posted about his experience with Sony Ericsson phones back in April. <a href="http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/kent/2007-April/002405.html">http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/kent/2007-April/002405.html
</a> SE phones are good and do that 'killler phone call application' well so might be a good option for you Dan.<br><br>Personally I would go with a phone and carrier that does good data plans and has a good data phone, like a Windows Mobile device. But I like mobile data more than voice :-)
<br><br>Colin<br>