[clug] Linux Mobile Phone PDA combo

Ben shadroth at gmail.com
Tue Nov 22 08:06:37 GMT 2005


I'm looking for a phone-PDA combo or hacked "smartphone" that runs
linux and has WiFi

I'm particularly interested in what members may be using as a PDA,
that makes calls and has WiFi.

The main problem I've found so far is there is a set of sites for
phones, (that don't care about linux much and WiFi is hardly
mentioned) and another set that's focussed on PDAs and appears
virtually oblivous to the GSM side of things.

Contents:
1) Links & Linux Options I've found
2) My specific requirements.
3) My past attempts.

===
Links & Linux Options I've found:

---
http://www.handhelds.org
Large, useful wiki and home of the "Familiar" distro. AFAIK Familiar
runs on most iPAQs other than HTC (see below). I'm still looking into
the possibility adding GSM/GPRS to non-phone iPAQs.
---

http://www.xda-developers.com/
Home of the "Xanadux" distro and other info on the HTC products (O2
XDA, i-mate, MDA, Qtek etc.). See their wiki and this thread for
development info:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=20670&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
---

http://www.openezx.org/
Newish site, focused on the "Motorola EZX phone platform (mainly the
A780, E680 and E680i phones)."
---

http://www.linuxdevices.com/
fairly limited general info, but a good start

http://www.mtekk.com.au/
An Aus targetted site on the HTC products. Mainly Windows, but some
handy general info too.

===
My specific requirements:
---
Connectivity:
*GSM (I don't need quad band, just for Australian use).
*GPRS connection
*WiFi
*Bluetooth

Interface:
*Vibrating Alert (mandatory)
*Prefferably touch screen, handwriting recognition not required.
*200x320 bare minimum, I'd prefer something higher.
* Preferrably no QWERTY inbuilt, I'd rather get a FrogPad(www.frogpad.com)

Software:
*It'd be nice if it's already working on linux
*I can wait for/try to help with full working on linux, eg. WiFi, Bluetooth etc.

===
My past attempts at a phone
---

Over the last 2 years I've used a Nokia 9210, a Sony Ericsson P910i
and a Nokia 7710.

9210:
Big. No vibration, no wireless, no bluetooth. The 9500 has WiFi and
bluetooth, but no vibrating alert. The clamshell makes it very big and
the QWERTY keyboard is a waste of space and time.

P910i:
Small for what it does. Main drawbacks are: screen resoltion, made by
Sony and it's running Symbian, not Linux.

Nokia7710 (my current phone):
Greatest potential (even a 640x320 res.), but it falls down from buggy
OS. I've had it replaced once already and it's still mulfunctioning
(it doesn't ring when people call, so I should be able to return it as
"not fit for intended purpose"). It's got it all except WiFi and
linux, but the Series 90 OS was botched too badly.
===


More information about the linux mailing list