[dundee] nokia e90 communicator

[Robert McWilliam]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 06:21:44PM +0100, Digit (SG) wrote:
> I have tried a few searches on a few different search engines from
> time to time over a few weeks to find any useful information about
> putting linux on a nokia comunicator e90, or anyone having done it
> already, and i have turned up nothing.
> 
> Does anyone know of it having been done?
> 
> Or any good resources for putting linux on mobile devices?,
> paricularly symbian60 using phones, nokias, nokia comunicators.

I've not seen anyone doing this. Probably due to some combination of
them being quite rare, the low spec and lack of detail on what the
hardware actually is.

> Think i'd loose any functionality?

Almost certainly. The phone functionality will probably disappear (a
lot of the control for the radio is in software so it's actually
illegal to swap the software out without getting it re-certified) the
peripheral devices are likely to be a pain to get drivers for - I
noticed it has GPS which is usually a problem. Also I don't think
there is a software stack to handle the interface across the two
screens depending on if it's open or closed. [1]

> Dual boot likely to be as easy as on a regular pc?

No. Usual process for putting linux on embedded systems is to reflash
which replaces the existing OS. There isn't usually any provision in
embedded systems to boot from anywhere other than the start of the
flash ROM so you can't dual boot. In theory you could put a
chainloader in the ROM and load an OS from somewhere else but that
will be a pain due to the somewhere else being slower than the ROM,
and depending on how much the original OS relies on hardware
integration you might end up having to do a lot of virtualisation type
stuff to get it to work. If there is firmware available from Nokia
for it then you should be able to flash back the original if you want
it again. 

> Any & all help greatly appreciated. 

Not sure any of that was help...

Robert

[1] There was one of the Nokia communicators that was pretty much a
phone bolted onto the back of the screen of a PDA with a modem cable
connecting the two, if that is the one you've got you'll have better
chance of reflashing the PDA part and leaving the phone part alone.

________________________________________________________
Robert McWilliam     rmcw at allmail.net    www.ormiret.com

**Disclaimer: Opinions cited by me are not necessarily my opinions.
Facts cited by me are not necessarily facts.