iPAQ & Linux

[Jeffrey Pyne]

So in a fit of daring, I decided to load Linux on my iPAQ PDA last night.  I
saw the cool stuff on www.pocketlinux.com and www.linuxhandhelds.com, and
was intrigued.  Then I saw the screenshots of the Qt Palmtop Environment
(http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/embedded/qpe.html) and was blown away.
I think it _looks_ better than WinCE (wince).  Despite warnings like "If
this installation fails then your iPAQ could become (temporarily) unusable"
in the installation instructions, I decided to dive in.

The installation went very smoothly.  After citing some magic incantations
and sacrificing a virgin goat to Hecubus, I followed the directions on
www.handhelds.org, and a couple hours later (with surprising little swearing
and fist-pounding), I had a brand spankin' new Linux installation.  After
that, I installed the Qt Palmtop Environment, which was even easier and
required even fewer obscenities (none, actually).  Man this thing looks
neat! 

The environment has some wicked cool features.  You can change the
orientation of the screen so that it is sideways or upside down.  You can
change the characters that the handwriting recognizer uses.  The
anti-aliased text is nice to look at.  The games it comes with are decent
(yay Tetris!).

Unfortunately, there are also some disappointing "features."  Some things
don't work at all.  For example, I can't set the time and/or date.  You
can't put the unit to sleep.  You can turn it off, but you lose all your
data;  you can leave it running, but the batteries die after a few hours
(and then you lose all your data).  You can't dim the backlight, further
ensuring that the batteries will die quickly.  There is no sound.  Most of
the buttons don't work (which, I read, is because of the way the button
circuitry was designed).  I haven't found any way to synch this with my
workstation.

In short, this application of Linux looks very promising.  If I had some
spare cycles to do devote to the development effort, I would definitely want
to keep it installed.  But since I would kinda like to actually USE this
thing, I think I am going to attempt to reload WinCE (wince).  I chuckled at
the note on the handhelds.org site that says "lots of people have
successfully restored WinCE on fifteen (15) different iPAQ's."  Fifteen is a
lot?  Talk about "bleeding edge."  :)

Has anyone else out there in TV-land put Linux on their iPAQ?  Has anyone
found it to be usable beyond showing it to your co-workers and saying "Look
co-workers, Linux on my iPAQ!"?  Anyone tried the Century Software version
of Linux (or any other for that matter)?  Since the meeting tomorrow is
about "Alternative Platforms," would anyone be interested in seeing this
thing?  If so, I can attempt to attend, which would be my first meeting.
(Do they dress up, throw toast and rice, shout at the screen and stuff like
that at these things?)

~Jeff