[Wylug-discuss] Mobile Phones and Linux

[ALLEN, David]

Hi,

We have a requirement for a mobile phone and PDA which can also download
(via usb) and open a simple excel spreadsheet (sorry!). Has anyone had
any experience of any of the new breed of linux phones which may be up
to this task? We presently use a XDA but it is very unreliable and
crashes frequently, mostly when you are on the phone(!)

Thanks in advance for any advance.

David




-----Original Message-----
From: wylug-discuss-bounces at wylug.org.uk
[mailto:wylug-discuss-bounces at wylug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Mike Goodman
Sent: 24 June 2008 11:01
To: James Holden
Cc: wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Mobile Phones and Linux

James Holden wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 09:56:34AM +0100, Mike Goodman wrote:
>> My Vodafone contract is coming to an end. A new phone is also
required. 
>> Apart from calls and texts, the only requirement is to be able to use

>> it very occasionally, if ever, should I need to use ssh to restart a 
>> server in an emergency.
> 
> Do-able, but fiddly on a phone with a "normal" phone keypad. I have an
> E61 with a querty keyboard and it's a bit better. I read mail on it, 
> via SSH, in Mutt, on the bus.
> 
> The version of putty available works very well.
> 
>> I cam get a Nokia e51 should I renew (they call it upgrade???) where 
>> I am, for the same minutes/texts deal at reduced cost.
> 
> Sales jargon :)
Yup. Couldn't be anything else. Same package. Price reduction. So
keeping a customer at renewal when your service levels have seriously
deteriorated must be an upgrade for them, mustn't it? QED. ;)
> 
> The N95 is significantly better. If you want it for mail and SSH, 
> consider an E61i.
I need a phone for when I'm out and about. That generally means driving
or walking. It gets switched off for meetings. Which means all that's
usually practical is talking and an occasional text message. Hence I
tend to go for the best of the bunch of the ones they offer free with
the package renewal.

Also, even the ssh requirement would be emergency only. I'm not even
sure I'll ever need it, more a belt and braces consideration.
> 
>> Now I've been told I'll need a 'doze box to download anything from 
>> any Nokia phone, but the person who said that thinks they run on 
>> 'doze. I note the e51 runs on Symbian OS. Can any of you enlighten
me, please?
>> And if a Nokia is not an option, would someone please suggest 
>> alternatives I could consider, and which network provider it comes
with?
> 
> No, they run Symbian. You can copy stuff to/from them using the USB 
> cable (it shows up as a standard storage device) or use bluetooth, 
> which works quite well in Gnome these days.
> 
> If you want to upgrade the firmware, or replace operator crippled 
> firmware with the generic one, you'll need a Windows box, but 
> VirtualBox personal edition will work OK because it supports USB.
Thanks. I'll look it up.
> 
> Speaking of which.... AFAIK Three, T-Mobile and Orange disable the 
> VoIP on the E series phones.
In which case I'll probably stick with V'fone. O2 have "previous" as far
as I am concerned.
> 
> They support IMAP + SSL if you want to do email. You can use a 3rd 
> party "connector" called goosync.com to sync you calendar to Google 
> calendar if that's your thing.
> 
> James

Many thanks, James and Daniel. All useful stuff.

Mike

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