| Linux on Dell Axim X5 | Download Linux for Axim X5 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Some time ago I've got a PDA. Of course from the very beginning I was going to buy a Linux-based PDA because with Linux you can use any of millions of free programs available with sources on the network, and with WinCE you're limited to a few built-in applications and you have to buy any additional software, and usually it's of a bad quality, and you can't do anything about it because you don't have the source code.
I would like to buy a Sharp Zaurus but unfortunately Sharp doesn't sell their PDAs in Russia, so I had to look for an alternative variant.
The handhelds.org site is the best place to look for information Linux on PDAs. In fact, most developers porting Linux to various ARM-based PDAs are concentrated around this site.
The best supported PDAs are iPAQs. Compaq publishes detailed technical information on his PDAs thus Linux on iPAQs works well and is well supported. On other PDAs developers have to guess many technical details in order to make it work, and it takes a much longer time to port Linux to an unsupported PDA.
However, I bought a Dell since it has promising hardware. I thought I will be easy to adapt Linux to run on Axim X5, but it turned out into a whole new free-time project.