Cheap Linux Hardware - Linux compatible Smart Phones (Sprint or Verizon)

Author

Linux compatible Smart Phones (Sprint or Verizon)

General Schvantzkopf

2007-12-14, 7:15 pm

I'm starting to think about upgrading my phone. I'm current using a
Sprint Treo 700p. Fedora has lost the the ability to sync with the Treo,
there was a udev change a number of months ago that broke gpilot in F7,
the udev change migrated back into FC6 and it's also in F8. The bug has
been open for several months but after some initial activity nothing has
happened for the last couple of months. Hotsyncing still works in SUSE
10.3 so when I want to sync the Treo with Evolution I have to boot into
SUSE and do it there which is pain in the XXX. Also it looks like Palm is
going down for the count so the hoped for Linux based Palm is probably
never going to see the light of day. So it's time to think about moving
on to another brand.

From a Linux point of view these are the things that I'm looking for,

Syncing with Evolution
ssh support (Treo's had two ssh clients, pssh and tussh, which allows me
to ssh into my Linux servers).

General phone requirements

High resolution screen
Decent web browser
Decent e-mail client (POP and SMTP is all I need)
Decent address book (at least as good as the one in the Palm Treo)
EVDO
GPS

A phone that runs Linux would be great but I don't know of any Linux
smart phones in the US.

How well are Blackberries support on Linux?
Are Windows Mobile phones supported on Linux? Are they really as awful as
everyone says?

Are there any other comparable smart phones that I should be looking at.
Are there going to be any Google phones in the next 6 months?

Thanks for your input.

Michael Perry

2007-12-17, 1:21 pm

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:40:24 -0600, General Schvantzkopf wrote:
> I'm starting to think about upgrading my phone. I'm current using a
> Sprint Treo 700p. Fedora has lost the the ability to sync with the Treo,
> there was a udev change a number of months ago that broke gpilot in F7,
> the udev change migrated back into FC6 and it's also in F8. The bug has
> been open for several months but after some initial activity nothing has
> happened for the last couple of months. Hotsyncing still works in SUSE
> 10.3 so when I want to sync the Treo with Evolution I have to boot into
> SUSE and do it there which is pain in the XXX. Also it looks like Palm is
> going down for the count so the hoped for Linux based Palm is probably
> never going to see the light of day. So it's time to think about moving
> on to another brand.
>
<snip>

Hi-

I went through the same thing just recently. I had a Treo 650 which
started having a variety of ailments. I had decided to move completely
off the Treo line and go back to a basic phone but as usual once I get
to the sprint store things changed. I settled on a Centro which syncs
to Ubuntu very easily using pilot-link and jpilot so I think it would
probably work with evolution. On Fedora, according to some stuff I've
read, a udev rule had to be changed out. On Ubuntu Gutsy, I hooked the
phone up and the first time nothing happened so I manually inserted the
visor module. After that it all just works now.

The Centro has a bunch of stuff bundled like an IM client, a new version
of VersaMail which seems to actually work, and other applications. The
form factor is smaller though and you should go to a store and touch one
and see if you can live with the changes. For me, it came down to price
versus functionality versus use. I could not see paying almost 450.00
for a new treo when the Centro came in at 99.00 and had the majority of
applications you listed except for ssh. I owned previous installations
of a few applications I had purchased that I transferred over to the new
hotsync user I had created.

--
Michael Perry | do or do not. There is no try. -Master Yoda
mperry@lnxpowered.org | http://www.lnxpowered.org

General Schvantzkopf

2007-12-18, 7:15 pm

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:02:20 -0800, Michael Perry wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:40:24 -0600, General Schvantzkopf wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Hi-
>
> I went through the same thing just recently. I had a Treo 650 which
> started having a variety of ailments. I had decided to move completely
> off the Treo line and go back to a basic phone but as usual once I get
> to the sprint store things changed. I settled on a Centro which syncs
> to Ubuntu very easily using pilot-link and jpilot so I think it would
> probably work with evolution. On Fedora, according to some stuff I've
> read, a udev rule had to be changed out. On Ubuntu Gutsy, I hooked the
> phone up and the first time nothing happened so I manually inserted the
> visor module. After that it all just works now.
>
> The Centro has a bunch of stuff bundled like an IM client, a new version
> of VersaMail which seems to actually work, and other applications. The
> form factor is smaller though and you should go to a store and touch one
> and see if you can live with the changes. For me, it came down to price
> versus functionality versus use. I could not see paying almost 450.00
> for a new treo when the Centro came in at 99.00 and had the majority of
> applications you listed except for ssh. I owned previous installations
> of a few applications I had purchased that I transferred over to the new
> hotsync user I had created.

pssh is a third party app, I'm sure that it will work on your Centro. The
Fedora problem is not as simple as a udev rule. Early on that worked but
it doesn't any more. There has been a major udev change that has broken
syncing on Fedora. That change might not be in Ubuntu yet, either that or
Ubuntu has also fixed gpilot. I was able to get syncing to work with
Ubuntu, but that's not a solution. There is an incompatibility between
the version of Evolution in Fedora 7 and the one used in Ubuntu. The
distro that seems to work is SUSE 10.3 which has a compatible version
Evolution and a working version of gpilot. However that's not a long term
solution.

Also the Palm OS is really long in the tooth. There is no development
going on for the Palm OS and if what's happening on Fedora is a harbinger
of things to come the support for Palm devices on Linux is going to
disappear because no one is actively maintaining gpilot. Palm has been
promising a Linux phone for years but it doesn't look like it's going to
happen. I wouldn't be surprised to see Palm file chapter 11 in the next
12 months or so.

What I would really like is a Linux based phone with a large iPhone like
display. I certainly don't want a iPhone because it's closed and it runs
on a 2G network. I was wondering if any 3G Linux phones are available in
the US yet? I'd also like to hear from Europeans because their phones are
so far ahead of ours. Are there 3G Linux phones in Europe that interact
will with Linux systems? Is the Linuxness of the Linux phones exposed,
i.e. is there a shell available?, can you easily install programs?

Michael Perry

2007-12-23, 7:12 pm

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:27:27 -0600, General Schvantzkopf wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:02:20 -0800, Michael Perry wrote:
>
>
> pssh is a third party app, I'm sure that it will work on your Centro. The
> Fedora problem is not as simple as a udev rule. Early on that worked but
> it doesn't any more. There has been a major udev change that has broken
> syncing on Fedora. That change might not be in Ubuntu yet, either that or
> Ubuntu has also fixed gpilot. I was able to get syncing to work with
> Ubuntu, but that's not a solution. There is an incompatibility between
> the version of Evolution in Fedora 7 and the one used in Ubuntu. The
> distro that seems to work is SUSE 10.3 which has a compatible version
> Evolution and a working version of gpilot. However that's not a long term
> solution.
>
> Also the Palm OS is really long in the tooth. There is no development
> going on for the Palm OS and if what's happening on Fedora is a harbinger
> of things to come the support for Palm devices on Linux is going to
> disappear because no one is actively maintaining gpilot. Palm has been
> promising a Linux phone for years but it doesn't look like it's going to
> happen. I wouldn't be surprised to see Palm file chapter 11 in the next
> 12 months or so.
>
> What I would really like is a Linux based phone with a large iPhone like
> display. I certainly don't want a iPhone because it's closed and it runs
> on a 2G network. I was wondering if any 3G Linux phones are available in
> the US yet? I'd also like to hear from Europeans because their phones are
> so far ahead of ours. Are there 3G Linux phones in Europe that interact
> will with Linux systems? Is the Linuxness of the Linux phones exposed,
> i.e. is there a shell available?, can you easily install programs?
>

Hi-

A bit delayed on the response; but I wanted to provide a link that I had
remembered seeing before on linux based phones and some statuses of
them:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9423084269.html

The last update was in 2006 to the web page; but there are a few that
may be worth additional searches.

--
Michael Perry | do or do not. There is no try. -Master Yoda
mperry@lnxpowered.org | http://www.lnxpowered.org