Re: why debian on a handheld ?
Hello,
On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 01:13:34PM +1100, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> Is debian suitable for handhelds ?
Yes, since current handhelds are more powerful than the first computer I
ran Debian on, and it's working happily on my C700 :-)
> Do you intend to try to install a normal base system and depend on the
> use of compact flash cards or something ?
My current approach for the chroot-debian project is to depend on the use
of a storage card for the Debian installation. The Zaurus has two
expansion slots, so you can permanently keep the SD/MMC card with Debian
in one slot, and keep the other one free for WiFi, Bluetooth, a
Microdrive or whatever else you need.
This has required only trivial changes to the default Debian system, and
you can put an X11-based system on a 64MB card, and quite a few extra
applications on a 128MB card. Some crazy people have even run a KDE
desktop, Evolution and Gimp on the handheld.
I think that shrinking things is the wrong approach if this results in
reduced functionality - while I appreciate the work that has been put
into busybox, I prefer to have the full-featured utilities that I'm used
to on my system.
> Openzaurus do a pretty good job with their distribution, what would our
> relationship be with them ?
Speaking for the chroot-debian project, I'm depending on the installed
kernel and drivers to handle all the hardware (SD/MMC, CF etc). And if
someone wants a fully natively booting Debian system, I'm sure the
OpenZaurus kernel and base setup will be an immense help in getting that
working.
-Klaus
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