PPC w/o MicroSoft?

[Splitter]

So I've been having a discussion in another thread regarding the use of older versions of MSOS's on PPC. That spawned a question on my part:

Is there a development group here somewhere that is working on a Linux OS, or another OS for PPC?

Linux will run on just about anything, its' lightweight OS needs little memory and cpu power. So how hard would it be to design a light Linux based OS for a PPC?

Obviously it would take a group of people, much like those groups developing Linux distros and programs.

I think there is memory to be saved, and speed to be had. And if someone were smart enough to wrap a dialer and vendor agnostic connectivity around it, it would take off.

Any interest in this? :rolleyes:

[Johnston411]

http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Xanadux

or android

or

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1T4GGIH_en-GBGB243GB243&q=linux+for+pocket+pc&meta=

[Splitter]

Wow, I'm disappointed.

There are hundreds of WM5 & WM6 custom ROMs' being developed by hundreds of top notch developers...... and only ONE Linux port?

very underwhelming...

[Soul_Est]

You may also want to check out OpenMoko (http://www.openmoko.org) or just try and put together your own.

[edzilla]

Wow, I'm disappointed.

There are hundreds of WM5 & WM6 custom ROMs' being developed by hundreds of top notch developers...... and only ONE Linux port?

very underwhelming...
It's a whole different thing. All those roms you are talking about are just modifications of an existing OS.
The linux port amounts to building an OS from scratch, and it's a lot harder.

[jon_k]

It's a whole different thing. All those roms you are talking about are just modifications of an existing OS.
The linux port amounts to building an OS from scratch, and it's a lot harder.

Agreed.

Actually porting Linux to an HTC device wouldn't be so bad. Some people have found out how to flash ROM's theoretically without needing a bootloader even.

The problem really boils down to drivers for Linux. We can't even get proper video drivers working with the Kaiser under Windows Mobile (the proper drivers were never included, so video output is slowwww) though the hardware supports 3d acceleration! HTC denies our requests for hardware specs to develop our own. And this is trouble we're having with drivers for Windows!

Really it boils down to this hardware. This type of hardware being proprietary as you can get. You've got processors and controllers that are highly proprietary and the vendors are tied in to 100 different non compete non-disclosure agreements and can't provide specs. Even the qualcomm chips borrow code from broadcom -- which means qualcomm can't publish how those portions of their chips work! Microsoft then licenses code from these vendors with promises not to share source. HTC licenses code from broadcom and qualcom swearing not to publish it. Etc etc...

Now, your a Linux developer. How do you integrate drivers in to your kernel when the chip instruction set isn't even documented? Control codes aren't published? Reverse engineering is the only way, which can take years. Developers here have learned simple controls such as to change LED's or discovered the standard interface for USB/SD cards. That's about it.

It's hard for an open source OS to survive in a closed-spec hardware world. PC's are open and well documented and very standard. However, every phone is different, and different production runs may even have significant changes in internal hardware design.

It's really a waste of time to seek Linux on mobile devices until hardware becomes standardized. Which is never because companies like qualcomm and broadcomm via and others are not fans of open source. This is the market and those who dominate it.

If this saddens you, it should -- but it's just the way it is.