Palmsource moving to Linux!
 

If I read this correctly, they'll be emulating the Palm OS under Linux to allow apps to run on this new platform.... Hmmm.... Nokia should be watching this with interest!

http://www.palmsource.com/press/2006...xplatform.html

Well, not really, since Palmsource claimed they'd be doing this what - 2 years ago? And look how far they've gotten. ;-)

- Rich

Now that Access owns Palmsource, I'm a little more confident this will happen sooner rather than later. Looks like the developer tools will be distributed around this summer from what I read. Maybe they are going with a OS 9 --> OS X like transition with this emulation of legacy Palm OS stuff. Hopefully Palm OS will die as quickly as OS 9 did. What with the short life cycles of handheld devices, the full transition shouldn't take too long. I'm relatively optimistic:-)

Wait wait wait. I give up on Palm and say "screw you" by buying a Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000. And now all this news about Access Linux with Palm OS. Coming in 2007? This thing is gonna be huge! Netfront browser :-) Ohhh.
ACCESS and PalmSource Announce the ACCESS Linux Platform
Pictures of the Palm OS Emulator on ALP <thats Palm OS Linux running!
More Details on the ACCESS Linux Platform

Interesting comments from a certain Mike Caine in that PIC thread:

Wierd - ever thought about selling your 770 Mike if you hate it that much?

And....

Have you been trolling on this forum all this time with your blog thread thing? Do us a favour and swap your 770 for an iPAQ... :)

He seems to have disappeared recently.

Although I'd say the 770 *doesn't* ignore power users (can get root, lots of Linuxy open goodness for people who know what they're doing). Mike's problem, if I'm so bold as to describe it, is he wants the things the power users can do without being a power user - which is fine, but it'll take time for the power users to produce pretty GUI frontends to things like changing the boot screen, enabling USB host mode on demand, setting up swap etc.

He also seems to have suffered from a litany of bugs/deficiencies (some of which I've encountered, some of which I haven't) - which is to be expected from a v1 device (or "v.2" if we believe the sticker on the box ;-)) less than 4 months after its launch.

The changes in IT-2006 (improved application installer - including handling of dependencies; better default menu layout (from what I can gather); better Hildon API making porting existing apps easier; officially support VoIP and IM; ...) all look to improve the 770 muchly :-)

Exactly. Mike really seems (seemed?) to try and push the envelope for what the device was intended to be. Whether he was pushing around large amounts of text in what is a glorified notepad app or opening up several apps simultaneously and getting mad when he ran out of memory, it all seemed to fuel a backlash at the community and Nokia.

As you've mentioned, this is an early device with real bugs and limitations. It's wonderful to be able to try new things and tinker under the hood (Which is one of my favorite things about the device), but I think everyone needs to realize that things will get better, and version 1 of a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC was just as riddled with bugs and not nearly as powerful, with such great potential. Primary use cases aside, this can be a really great platform for a variety of tasks beyond a "web tablet", if the community doesn't kill it first ;)

I look forward to the 2006 firmware release, and hopefully things will stabilize a bit both with the OS as well as the applications that are being ported over. It's exciting to see things like Gnumeric, Rhythmbox, FBReader, etc. being ported but it's a little frustrating to run into issues just the same. Kudos to everyone who has spent time turning in bug reports and patches!

Larry

Indeed - it seems he isn't accepting the 770 for what it is; it's a bold move by Nokia, it's priced right and on the whole, the hardware spec is about right. Sure the software isn't perfect -but that will improve. Railing against Nokia and the device isn't productive, particularly when some of the issues are borne out of his own ignorance - having the power features made available to all and sundry may be on the list of things to get done, but I'm happy it's not necessarily #1 on that list, there are more important issues to resolve first. Performance and stability improvements, a wider selection of useful software - I'd like to see more commercial development if the quality justifies it. But if he's got a beef because he can't get root - sorry, it's probably just as well Nokia are protecting him because he'd most likely trash his unit in 5 seconds flat. Then complain about it.

Apologies if this post is quite pointed, but I do get the impression he's out of his depth technically with verbal diarrhea hence his "blog" which was probably more about him, than anything he ever wrote about!

I want to chime in here. In my (moderately frugal) opinion, the Nokia 770 as merely an "Internet Tablet" (web browser, email client, and web-based media player) in not worth $359 (or even the $309 that I paid for it).

However, the possibilities that are opened because it is linux-based and very flexible have made it a very worthwhile purchase for me. I have gotten more out of this little device than Nokia ever intended, and I can't wait to glean even more out of it when the 2006 OS updates start coming.

As for Mike Cane, I hate to talk down about someone, especially someone who (at a time) shared my enthusiasm for the Nokia 770, but his constant need to "fondle" every "lusty" electronic device in sight and become the leading off-topic thread starter have led me to virtually ignore his posts, especially the ones to his "live blog" bragging about his free Nokia 770 five times on the first page (and now he has two free Nokia 770s).

Mike Cane can do whatever he wants with his free Nokia 770s - I'm going to continue having fun with it and getting the most for my hard-earned (and well-spent) money.