RE: Handheld computers - what is available?
I have a customer who runs a van distribution system.
He wants his drivers to use handheld computers or barcode readers
when they visit shops, to pick up the list of items needing to
be replenished. He then wants to print a delivery note on the
spot for the customer and transmit the details by modem, for the
main office to print and despatch the invoice and update the
central database.
What Linux-capable handhelds are available that would be
suitable for this job?
The Palm family of hand-held devices has quite a few tools available for Linux,
I've just installed jpilot the I use with xcopilot and it seems to do quite a
lot. For Barcode capacity, I believe Symbol has packaged the Palm with a barcode
reader built-in. I remember an article about Safeway in the UK was going to give
some of these away to it's customers, but I never heard how that went. There are
also quite a few programming tools for Palms available in Linux as well.
Don't mind my E-Mail address, I am a test support tech, not a sales droid. I,
Personally find the Palm family to be very nice, and it seems that a majority of
hand-held users feel the same way. As I said, Symbol is selling them, IBM is
selling them and more people are signing on to licience the OS for there own
uses. The Visor from Handspring looks even better that Palm, but USB for Linux
won't work with it right now. Seems the USB driver won't reconise the Visor
until you activate the HotSync, but all the Palm tool expect to connect to the
device BEFORE you HotSync.
Other hand-held options are;
WinCE . . . I know nothing about Linux support for these. Does it exist?
Psion . . . I believe there is some support for Linux, I remember seeing a
package for it once.
Apple Newton . . . Has been completely dropped.
Could others please add to this list? I don't want to sound TOO biased.
This is what I know. I hope some other people out there can add their knowledge.
Cheers,
John Gay
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