Is the Agenda VR3 Linux PDA Dead? 115
An Anonymous Coward writes: "LinuxDevices.com has published a news item about the uncertain future of Agenda Computing and their VR3 linux PDA. According to the article, some members of the Agenda developer community are continuing work on current projects, but many have switched to other projects such as the Sharp Zaurus. Apparently there is an Agenda Germany office which is still shipping the VR3s (including to the U.S.) and which has said that they are continuing VR3 development -- but's not clear whether that means software or device development. Looks like another cool linux device has bitten the dust. Sigh."
Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Linux (Score:2)
Look at the new always-on wireless handhelds. Do you really want some 13-year-old 1337 hax0r breaking into your Palm? Sound rediculous?
It won't be in the future.
Re:Linux (Score:2, Redundant)
Low Feature Creep
What? You obviously didn't read the previous story on slashdot about the graphical LILO, with built-in game!
Re:Linux (Score:1, Interesting)
Good Times©
Re:Linux (Score:2)
I don't WANT another Lilo. Joe Sixpack doesn't give a rat's patoot what Lilo is, or why he'd want the source for it.
I've futzed with Linux for over a decade off and on (mostly off) and it bugs me that I _still_ have to know the mount command, that I've got to figgure out print queues on my own, and that I've got to have comfortable knowledge of TCP/IP theory to configure anything more than a minimal ethernet connection.
Really. Joe Sixpack....eth0, printcap, and fstab...the mind boggles.
Here's hoping OSX is what insulates the computer USERS from the gears of the OS.
I don't think so... (Score:2)
Linux v EPOC (A full ground up 32-bit RTOS)
Stability ? None of my EPOC machines have ever crashed
Customized integration ? Drag and drop word, excel, powerpoint or whatever docs to the device and back, sync with Outlook.
Security ? SSL, Digital certificates as standard.
Low Feature Creep ? Its a good thing that you don't get more features ? Even so all of the documents produced on my old Psion work on my new Nokia.
Does only what you want it to ? Does all that and things I hadn't thought of an now love (record a memo).
In terms of stability, integration and security EPOC blows Linux away, the major reason is simple
It is an OS designed for small devices from the ground up, not the porting of a big iron OS to a small device.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:1)
Sorry, our perspectives are a little shifted. When I think big iron, I think 8+ proc Cray's and Alpha's.
I wasn't flaming any other OS's. If EPOC works really well for you, good for you.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:2)
Linux is nice on my desktop, but I wouldn't trust it on my phone.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:2)
Re:I don't think so... (Score:2)
A "mad rush" ? So Symbian [symbian.com] doesn't have most of the major phone manufacturers using it then.
As with Transmeta, Embedded Linux is more hype than reality IMO.
Re:Linux (Score:1)
I, for one, was very interested in it because it was linux. Here, you have a PDA with an OS I am familiar with, means to add, change, and remove things at will. At the risk of appearing like an OpenSource zealot, Linux alone would have sold it, had everything else been equal.
However, it wasn't. When I originally checked them out, the case seemed somewhat flimsy. There wasn't enough memory, and it didn't really follow anyone else's 'standards' for accessories. But I never thought that the immaturity of PDA-Linux was a problem. It would have gotten better over time.
Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:2, Interesting)
You cheap bastard. What you want sounds a little socialist; wouldn't you agree? Is it that you don't think the programmer should do everything for free, or is it that you can't afford any really nice software?
--BEGIN SOAPBOX--
Some programs couldn't get where they are without major funding. Look at programs like 3D Studio Max 4 or Lightwave. Those are both $1000+ programs. Do you realize how long it would have taken for them to get where they are now without the kind of funding they receive?
I'm not saying the community couldn't have created anything just as good. But, look at the competition. Blender, you say? Not even close in terms of features and community support.
This is but one example of high quality software that couldn't have come about without $$$. These programs are also an example of some of the most widely pirated graphics software in the industry.
How would you feel if a company producing software you relied on went belly up? Would you not have any remorse for being 'one of them', the piraters?
I don't agree with many companies rape^h^h^h^h pricing schedule; I just don't use their software.
--END SOAPBOX--
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:4, Insightful)
Good reasons for using a free OS on a hand-held are going to include:
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:2)
Like I said, I was on a soapbox.
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:1)
Thanks. (Score:2)
It's true, I was being lazy and cheap but that's my right. Another poster has pointed out that I might have been wrong about my assesment of their licenses. In this case the lesson is double: Even the perception of restictions is enough to keep a community from forming. It was enough to keep me from buying one.
As for that troll on the soap box, there are ways coders can make money besides working for some devilish company that wants to resell their telnet client ever year. I suggest you learn how, and fast.
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it that you don't think the programmer should do everything for free, or is it that you can't afford any really nice software?
You don't understand the difference between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech. It's the latter which is important GNU/Linux PDA users, not if GNU/Linux or a different free-as-in-speech system is running on the box.
That doesn't mean that GNU/Linux on PDAs is free-as-in-beer. When I bought my iPAQ last summer, the preinstalled GNU/Linux distribution was priced about 40 or 50 €, and I didn't have any problem paying for free-as-in-speech software. I would of course have been able to flash my PDA, but as I hadn't done it before and flashing the bootloader bears the risk of "bricking" a PDA and making it unusable, it was a fair deal. Apart from the preinstalled iPAQ I got a CD with all source codes used for building the GNU/Linux image, even a cross-development environment (binary packages + source + build scripts), everything.
It would be a good idea for Agenda to have a similar business model with commercial free-as-in-speech software, too. That's what GNU/Linux users are looking for.
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:1)
This is the problem with using OSS as a business model. You are left giving away yourproduct and selling services. Some companies find it more cost effective to hire their own in-house or contract service personel then to purchase services through the product supplier. Even trying to sell a tangible product on an OSS foundation has proven to be unstable as witnessed by the VR3 PDAs.
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:1)
Contrary to what many believe, someones views being "socialist" does not automatically invalidate them
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:2)
You cheap bastard. What you want sounds a little socialist; wouldn't you agree? Is it that you don't think the programmer should do everything for free, or is it that you can't afford any really nice software?
He was refering to Free as in Speech, not free as in beer. You can sell GPL code.
How would you feel if a company producing software you relied on went belly up? Would you not have any remorse for being 'one of them', the piraters?
The original poster was refering to software for a PDA, where the hardware is what makes the company the money. Of course software companies whos sole product is software should charge, and PDA companies who make software should add on a little to the price of the PDA for the software they produce for it. However, PDA software, especially since it was TAKEN from a Free (as in speech) project, should be Free (as in speech)...
Nobody disputes software makers need to pay rent and buy food, and if for some reason the company wen't tits up and you do have the source, you're covered.
-- iCEBaLM
EPOC, WindowsCE, PalmOS.... (Score:2)
You are kidding right ? There are roughly three players in the marketplace right now
Symbian who run on Mobile phones like the Nokia Communicator (I have one, its superb), and Psions
WindowsCE on those lovely iPAQs, and they are lovely to use even if you hate Redmond
PalmOS single threaded poor quality OS, with a large user base.
NONE OF THESE ARE GPLed. All of them are successful.
People do NOT look to buy a PDA because they can hack code on it. Sure I can develop code for my PDA, but the OS ? Its a commercial product, I don't want it to fail. If you buy an PDA only if its got a GPL'ed OS then you are limiting your choice and are certainly not the mass market.
Re:EPOC, WindowsCE, PalmOS.... (Score:1)
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, we have the source to every bit on the device. And I mean Open Source [opensource.org]. It did take some effort to get the X11 sources, and source for the PMON boot loader, but we have them all. I know this because Brian Webb, who isn't an Agenda employee, rebuilt everything from source [desertscenes.net] to support my snow ABI, which is not binary compatible---if it wasn't rebuilt, it wouldn't work!
We're still working on automating the rebuild. Right now, doing this rebuild is a manual process, but I think we're a few weeks away from having a big "make World" that will spit out a cross compiler and then a romdisk image.
Now, if you're fretting about PDAs with components that aren't Open Source, go check out the Zaurus. Its Java implementation is proprietary. (If you want to write apps for it, they have to be GPL'd unless you're a Troll licensee; I guess some people see that as a positive thing.)
$250 always seemed a touch high to me. I think there's a Linux PDA niche somewhere below the iPaqs, competing directly with low-end Palm devices. LinuxDA [linuxda.com] is a little too low end for my taste; I want virtual memory. I would think that had Agenda's parent company not stumbled, pricing on the VR3 would have come down.I don't remember an NDA on their developer pages.
(I wish people would stop moderating articles with "overrated/underrated" just to avoid metamod; the parent is at score 3 with no moderation reason. And the parent msg is substantially incorrect.)
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:1)
$250 always seemed a touch high to me. I think there's a Linux PDA niche somewhere below the iPaqs, competing directly with low-end Palm devices.
I always thought the (monochrome) iPaq H31xx [amazon.com] models were a good bet to fill this niche. They are significantly more powerful than the VR3, with a better price tag.
Linux development has lagged behind the color iPaqs for some time, but it looks as if the H31xx is finally supported "out of the box" [handhelds.org].
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:2)
Mod points to date are +2 interesting -1 troll. Go figure, I said what I thought at the time and someone thought it was interesting.
The parent message was an oppinion, bassed on my percetion. It looked like it would be hard to get at the source code and it was. As you say, "It did take some effort to get the X11 sources, and source for the PMON boot loader, but we have them all." At the time, I was unwilling to make that effort and it kept me from buying. If they wanted to build a community they needed to make it easy to help.
Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:2)
Actually I think a big reason for the Agenda VR3's failure is marketing and product focus. To be profitable you have to sell the product in number great enough to offset initial research and development costs as well as current production costs. If no one knows about the product (outside of a relatively small market of Slashdot readers) it is hard to meet those numbers. Further, if the people who do know about the product don't see advantages big enough to justify the price or don't have the discretionary income to buy the product, the product just cannot be profitable.
Why are people surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Any product that tries to cash in on the "Linux is cool" will find that people are looking for substance, not gimmicks.
I doubt there were many people that considered it a serious player in the world of PDAs.
I am not saying this to start trouble, I believe it just needs to be said.
Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:2)
Unfortunately this will reflect badly on linux, rather than the product's vendor. Let's watch linux's "underdog" reputation mutate into a "buzzword" reputation, like thin clients did.
Thin clients have been around for 20 years, yet Sun decided to make it sound like they invented it! When they never got around to shipping anything of substance (besides Java), lots of suits thought that "thin clients" were vapourware, and a buzzword that was not worth bothering with.
Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:2)
Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:1)
A Linux one would be nice.
But not with a crummy resolution and B&W screen.
What were their marketing people smoking?
///Peter
Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
However, their hardware spec was still hugely flawed. Some of the more obvious deficiencies:
\w\$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:1)
Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
The penstroke recognition was so innacurate and slow compared to a Palm device that it made the Agenda useless and there were no real productivity applications.
It's too bad that it's dissapearing but the honest truth is that the Agenda had no value to offer beyond the "Linux Inside" gimmick.
People like you. (Score:1)
I was a developer ... Re:People like you. (Score:1)
It quickly became obvious that IMO the device was not going to be anywhere near usable for about a year by anyone but hard-core hardware, kernel and X11 hackers who would be working out the issues with Agenda's hardware and their software distribution.
I bought the Agenda to develop productivity applications for a viable platform, NOT to help Agenda Computing in chasing down their bugs and fix poorly implemented core features.
The platform was not viable simply because of the poor usability of the character recognition system that no-one was working on in any sugnificant manner.
Cheers.
Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:3, Interesting)
While "Linux is cool" shouldn't be the main seller, there are connectivity aspects that simply blast other OS's away. For instance, when I got my Agenda plus Ethernet interface, it was lacking dhcp capabilities. However, I was able to compile and run dhcpcd out of the box - try that with a Palm or Windows CE based device.
Then, the software useability for basic PDA features is actually very decent in the recent releases.
That's a bummer man (Score:1)
The company that created it touted how it ran Linux, tried to rally the open source programming troops because it ran Linux, but never bothered to give it the ability to actually *SYNCH* with Linux.
I hope this does not happen with the uber cool Sharp Zaurus.
Re:That's a bummer man (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's not enough for you, then its Free Software, so go and write your own improvements. The only financial reason that a company should try to sell their hardware with Linux (aside from the kewlness factor) is to reduce their software developement costs, because the user community will step in and do it for free.
(That said, their fatal mistake was that starting to program was too hard- it needed too much hackivation energy. They released the source code, but as a mismash of patches to other projects. If they'd let users download a single tarball which built into a kernel and full set of executables, their software deficiencies would've been fixed faster, and maybe they'd have survived to this day)
Re:That's a bummer man (Score:4, Informative)
I'm happily using an Agenda, and syncs with Linux (gnomecard and gnomecal) quite well.
Admittedly, earlier versions of the synchronization programs had problems, though.
Re:That's a bummer man [Zaurus - no Linux Sync] (Score:1)
Zaurus is used to being beast of burden (Score:2)
Had very bad B5 quote. Probably have very bad karma, but at least there is symmetry.
Re:That's a bummer man (Score:2)
I would have bought a vr3 if it would have worked with Linux even 1/2 as good as the palm pilot does.... I would have even loved to see 1/64th of an effort to make it synch with linux PIM apps, or even just text based where I have to write perl conduits...
whats the market for this? (Score:2, Funny)
marketing travelers?
I dont knom.
Has sockwave flash support?
...
1 saludo
Tei
Re:Lesson Learned? It seems not. (Score:2)
But PDA's by their nature, are a bit more proprietary, where vendors try hard to differentiate themselves from each other. (Who would stand out in a group of a dozen PDA's that all run RedHat 7.2.)
Any successful PDA isn't going to be a public domain project, but a business venture. And BSD's licensing makes a more viable foundation than Linux. It breaks my heart, as I have used Linux from the start, but GPL is just too "restrictive in it's forced freedom"
And it still amazes me how people dump on using Linux or BSD on PDA's (why bother). These are *excellent* general purpose operating systems that are far more flexible than Windows CE and PalmOS, and can be made to not use a lot more resources. I think they're a perfect base, even if that's completely hidden. The big trick is to get a proper application suite on top of it, that is workable on a PDA. No standard X apps nor window managers are workable on a PDA. Qt's attempts are better, but still leave a lot to be desired. Once the productivity apps are there, and workable on a handheld form factor, you'll see FreeBSD/Linux PDA's take off...
-me
Not a total dead loss ... (Score:3, Informative)
I mean, we evolved from the dwarf binary format to elf
LL
Re:Not a total dead loss ... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a difficult issue. Take a program that has no heap/stack usage. How much memory does it use while running?
One 4k page, containing either the current instruction, or the target address the current instruction is loading. All the other pages can be dropped by the kernel VM system, and demand-loaded back in when needed. Plus whatever kernel overhead there is to support the task and memory maps.
OK, clearly that's not a useful answer. Any real app that's really eating only one page is thrashing so hard that it won't get anything useful done in a timely manner. But it does get you thinking about what the nature of memory usage is, and possible ways to reduce it.
eXecute In Place support is one strategy. When you build VR3 compressed rom images, you can flag some files as sticky. Through the magic of VM, those uncompressed files are mapped directly into processes, and their code really does run from ROM---no copy in RAM needed. But VR3 ROM is slower than RAM, and you use up more ROM space this way. VR3 hackers have spent a lot of time exploring the tradeoffs here. But there are plenty of other strategies, and some that go deeper into the build process.
For instance, it would be nice if each code page had as much useful stuff on it as possible. If you have a short "hot" function, a long bunch of rare exception handling, and then another short "hot" function, you have to keep the exception handling code paged in even though you're not using it much. It would be better to reorder the hot functions so that they share a page.
You can do some of this with gprof's function reordering profiles and some linker scripts, but I haven't gotten around to trying this on the VR3. I think that some of the approaches to small-device tailoring do require the deep, system-wide approaches the parent article describes.
Re:Not a total dead loss ... (Score:1)
Re:Not a total dead loss ... (Score:1)
LL
Re:Not a total dead loss ... (Score:1)
My project (shameless plug) The Religious Agenda [sourceforge.net] was offered as a binary only for the alpha release because everyone was using ELF at that time and I didn't have to worry too much about dynamic run time linker choaking on it. Once people started using SNOW and several incompatible SNOW ABI's came out, in order to offer binaries to the public I needed to offer for each SNOW ABI people had chosen to use.
One of the ways SNOW works is by making shared libraries appear as if they were static libraries. The entry points into the library became staticly encoded into the compiled binary. You make a slight change to your library and all of a sudden everything that links against it needs to be recompiled as the offsets to these libraries change. ELF uses symbols instead of static entry points and allows backward compatibilty for minor changes and fixes.
So I had to simply resort to distributing source only. This excluded all MS Windows users since there was no cross compiler available for them. This made a lot of the available open source apps unavailable to anyone but hard core geeks who were into customizing their Agenda with their own cross compiler environments.
Now I believe you are suggesting that the SNOW idea can be used transparently without loosing the ELF flexibility. If so I'm all for it. And I'm not blaiming SNOW on the death of the VR3, however it was my biggest gripe. Also keep in mind without symbols, debugging becomes a nightmare. I wouldn't want to see symbol less core dumps on desktop or server machines. The SNOW ideas are only applicable to PDA's IMHO.
Re:Not a total dead loss ... (Score:1)
Now I believe you are suggesting that the SNOW idea can be used transparently without loosing the ELF flexibility.
I suppose one could argue that "letting loose or releasing" the ELF flexibility is possible; however, context would indicate that you were concerned about failing to retain ELF flexibility. The word you were looking for is losing.
Congratulations! You have been participant #24 in my campaign to rid Slashdot of this error.
Re:Not a total dead loss ... (Score:1)
Note to future PDA companies (Score:3, Insightful)
From the developer community (Score:4, Informative)
The community itself is currently debating the best way to move off of Agenda Computing's servers (which are likely going to disappear without notice in the next several months). Once the community switches over, all of the software can be maintained by the community.
Other people, such as myself, are working on Linux-based PDA software that is platform independent. PicoGUI [picogui.org], for example, runs on the VR3, the Helio, PC's, OS X (I think...), and several embedded systems. With this kind of development, the success of the software does not depend on the success of any particular piece of hardware.
Nothing to do with LINUX (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with palmtops is that I have tried and tried to use them. But what I keep going back to is the smallest leanest notebook possible. And many other people think the same way. A Palmtop is in many ways a "toy".
Re:Nothing to do with LINUX (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently dusted off my libretto 50...
Runs linux like a charm
Re:Nothing to do with LINUX (Score:1)
Re:Nothing to do with LINUX (Score:2)
Personally, I happen to think the above two points I raised are the rule, not the exception. It's not exactly as if there's a great deal of successful companies that produce high quality code under the GPL, quite the opposite in fact. GPL has a large number of failures, non-deliveries, leaches, lightweights, and outright scams. Where are the successes? Few and far between.
Severe Usability Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not referring to the wide range of GPL'ed Linux applications that work on Linux PDAs (read: can be possibly made to work with reduced features after 'just a bit' of massive re-architecting and 'just a few' 36-hour porting/hacking/debugging sessions). I'm talking about the tiny pittance of ready-to-run pre-packaged apps, compared to the thousands of apps already available for Windows CE/Pocket PC and PalmOS PDAs.
While I'm a fan of Linux and Open Source, I have to acknowledge the catch-22 problem of trying to capture market share for Linux PDAs when Microsoft and its PDA minions - Compaq, HP and Casio etc, are barging their way in with the support of huge R&D and marketing budgets - and attracting the attention and efforts of legions of corporate and independent software developers who smell the $$ and cut their code, confident that they will recoup their development costs and make a profit before their apps end up on the warez/crack sites, Morpheus, Gnutella etc.
Growing software catalogues feed bigger hardware sales, and vice versa.
The moral?
If you want to push a new hardware/OS combination into the market, all you need is a few billion dollars behind you, and allow some time for the developers to get on board and feed your credibility with a software catalogue before you *have* to turn a profit.
Re:Severe Usability Problem (Score:2, Insightful)
I waste enough time browsing
I don't need something to occupy my time while I sit in front of the tube.
Re:Severe Usability Problem - possible solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some people have looked into porting POSE (the Palm OS Emulator) to the Zaurus and other Linux handhelds, so that it could run Palm apps. Unfortunately, POSE needs a Palm ROM image, and those are not freely redistributable. You'd need to have a Palm anyway to get it to work. And the speed would likely be atrocious on a 200MHz ARM chip. It's not full speed even on my K6-II 500MHz.
I had a different idea. The Palm SDK's are available, and there's prc-tools and such for Linux. Why not create an emulation layer for the Palm API, like Wine emulates the Windows API on Linux?
The Palm API is better-documented, and much simpler. It'd probably be fairly easy to get to at least Palm OS 2.0 or so. Then you could recompile Palm apps for a Linux PDA. There would be a speed hit due to redirection, but the underlying processor is much faster; overall I'd think there would be a speed boost.
You'd still need to recompile, but there are lots of open-source Palm apps, and lots more developed with Linux; the developers might have good motivation to quickly port their app to a new platform.
I think the endianess is the same, so that's not a problem. To be legally safe there might need to be a clean-room effort, I'm not sure yet, but this'd be a way to get a lot of apps for, e.g., the Zaurus, and quickly.
The moral of the story (Score:2, Interesting)
It looks like a product marketed almost solely at the technical community just can't succeed in economic conditions like those at present, if ever.
Even industry heavyweights with large technical communities are in trouble (Psion [psion.com] - who invented [ukonline.co.uk] the handheld computer - are pulling out [psionpress.com] and there are continuing rumours [slashdot.org] about the future of Palm), so what hope is there for a newcomer to the market? (Sharp take note! :-) )
Financial problems and an unfinished product (Score:4, Informative)
Agenda US was said to be "temporarily closed" because Agenda Germany (Agenda Computing GmbH) as an independent company was planning to establish an office in US (which would have become the new Agenda US). Apparently they were never able to come up with sufficient funding for that (at least not yet).
This is what we have heard from an ex Agenda employee Shane on the Agenda mailing list (I hope I got it right).
The financial problems might have been one reason why they started selling Agenda VR3 when it was still way too unfinished as a product. But there were also some technical problems such as not having enough available RAM. It made it harder to quickly come up with usable set of PDA applications. I guess it was the result of trying to push for a too low price point.
Anyway, I continue using my VR3. It is a nice device and certainly has been one step forward for Linux PDA devices. I am just sad that the step didn't carry very far.
Fry's Electronics was blowing them out for $89 (Score:1)
Agenda died because it was premature... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, with the latest kernels and romdisks, the Agenda is a pretty nice device for the low end of the PDA spectrum But its not consumer-ready and probably never will be now. But it could've been. I use it as my everyday PDA currently. But I also have a Zaurus and will probably switch to it once I have a few spare cycles.
A bigger issue I have with Agenda is that I don't think the target market was a winner. I don't think the low end of the PDA spectrum is where a business wants to be. Its up at the high end with the iPAQs, Jornadas, and Zaurus where anything interesting and profitable would be happening.
Re:Agenda died because it was premature... (Score:1)
1. It eats batteries. It's a good thing data is stored in flash, because the VR3 is dead often. This isn't helped any by the d*** thing turning itself on periodically.
2. The screen contrast is poor. Turning the backlight on makes it worse.
3. It is dog slow. Changing dates on the calendar is interminable, and bringing up the month display is almost useless because it takes so long.
4. Did I mention the battery life?
I'm going to have to replace it, since I've started missing meetings because it was dead when I wanted to enter something in my calendar, or it was dead when I wanted to check it. Too bad. The clear case is tres cool.
dv
2.
Re:Agenda died because it was premature... (Score:1)
fix for slow calendar app (Score:1)
-j.
My opinion about this PDA. (Score:2, Interesting)
times in my life I was more disappointed with
something. Technically the device is very powerfull
but it seems that they concentrated only in
hardware. If at least I could get java to
work correctly with it then I could use it more
(actually java only works with it when your
code throws no exceptions!)...
Their website makes the device look very appealing
but the reality is that there is no decent software
to support this hardware. Agenda still is nothing
more than one very expensive toy...
We don't need commercial software support. (Score:2)
That means device development. Software development is being done by the user community.
Agenda Germany should concentrate on hardware, since that's not something that we can do by ourselves very well. I'd rather buy a mass produced Agenda with 16MBytes of RAM, rather than spend hours soldering.
The Agenda was the most dissapointing PDA... (Score:1)
I own one... (Score:1)
It's a piece of junk. It has no end-user benefit over a palm III series. In fact, it is generally slower and harder to use than a palm III. Despite it's 66mhz processor the thing just did not perform. It's a device so unattractive (from a software/hardware POV) that only a true linux geek could even accord it pity enough to use it.
If Agenda Computing keeps up their MS-style practice of pushing their products to market before they've matured, they'll continue to find themselves where the are now- in the hole. Heck, they didn't even bring anything really new to the world...
My 2 cents.
Excellent low-end PDA (Score:2, Informative)
But even though I had been willing to shell out $250 for it, I got one for less on ebay. I've had it for a week, and I love it! Consider:
forget the Sharp Zaurus (Score:4, Insightful)
The Sharp Zaurus only runs Qt/Embedded. It will not share the screen with any other toolkit, and if I develop for Qt, I may end up having to pay steep licensing fees. Thanks, but no thanks. The point of Linux is that software is compatible among different Linux machines/devices and that I'm not forced to use just the software that some hardware vendor decided to impose on me.
Re:forget the Sharp Zaurus (Score:2)
As for Java, that's besides the point. PersonalJava runs everywhere, under X11, Qt, and WindowsCE. At issue is Linux GUI software, not Java.
And as for your last question, do you ever bother to engage your brain, or do you just pick up whatever device happens to look neat to you?
Re:forget the Sharp Zaurus (Score:1)
That's not true at all. First off, there is an xserver available for the Zaurus. Second, Qt/Embedded is just another layer of software dependencies. Ever try to run a KDE app on your desktop without Qt stuff installed? Ever try to run a GNOME app without the GTK?
Most servers run with only a text-mode console display, or they run entirely headless. Should we scrap them because its not X?
This whole post just makes no sense.
Re: xserver (Score:1)
If so, they're not making it obvious. I just went to google and typed in "xserver zaurus". Approximately 7 hits came up, 2 of which were in German, a few more in Japanese, and one pdf doc that I didn't bother to read.
you're wrong (Score:2)
Most servers run with only a text-mode console display, or they run entirely headless. Should we scrap them because its not X?
X11 can fully support text-only applications, as well as Qt-based applications. Qt/Embedded does not support X11-based applications. Get the difference?
This whole post just makes no sense.
Perhaps that's because I have developed handheld software and you haven't?
Re:you're wrong (Score:1)
I contacted Sharp--they had no plans for an X server as of two months ago. Even if there was one, as long as Qt/Embedded "owns" the screen, lots of nifty X11-based handheld software just won't port (input methods, window management, etc.).
Just because Sharp isn't producing it, doesn't mean it isn't out there.
Most servers run with only a text-mode console display, or they run entirely headless. Should we scrap them because its not X?
X11 can fully support text-only applications, as well as Qt-based applications. Qt/Embedded does not support X11-based applications. Get the difference?
Yes, but the lack of an X server doesn't make the whole Zaurus useless for those who don't have a need for an xserver. The average PDA user doesn't need or care about X. This is all assuming there is no X server...but there is.
This whole post just makes no sense.
Perhaps that's because I have developed handheld software and you haven't?
Sorry, but you're wrong yet again. I've been paid rather well for developing handheld software.
Here's why agenda got it's butt kicked (Score:4, Interesting)
The Palm, on the other hand, was invented after the designer carried a block of wood around in his pocket for a month, pondering what the PDA should act like. Agenda Computing could have used a good block of wood.
Re:Here's why agenda got it's butt kicked (Score:2, Interesting)
No, it's slow because of a combination of low-memory and running some things out of flash ROM. ROM is slower than RAM.
The Agenda did not remotely have any serious human factors involved in the hardware design.
It/s not as bad as you say. I carry mine everyday, never have problems with it's design. Reportedly the VR3Rechargable that never made it to market was thinner.
The user interface was badly designed.
It's an excuse, but it's under GPL. Look at AGToys [sf.net] and numerous other projects where people re-designed it. I think if Agenda had had more time and $$$ to hire a couple usability nerds, it would have gone much better.
Agenda's web site really didn't contain a whole lot of information that was helpful and only contained a few pieces of documentation here and there. There seemed to be this attitude of "if you want help or support or information, check out the agenda community".
You and I agree on that one. Luckily the community is still quite strong.
I bought one. I enjoy it. I wish I had more time to develop on it. I wish it had 16MB. I wish they didn't go out of busines. But what the hell, I've had fun.
Missed opportunities ... this doesn't surprise me (Score:2, Informative)
Linux PDAs need to set themselves apart... (Score:3, Insightful)
Problems From the Start (Score:2, Informative)
I love my VR3! (Score:2, Insightful)
James
Developers "switching" (Score:3, Insightful)
some developers have now switched to other projects such as the Sharp Zaurus
"Switching" from one Linux platform to another? It's a little ironic that part of the demise of this Linux PDA is something that can't/doesn't really happen to Linux on the desktop and is actually something that keeps the community together -- developers don't usually have to pick and choose which distribution/hardware/etc their Linux apps will run on.
Re:Developers "switching" (Score:1)
US Office (Score:2, Informative)
Not only that: I sent my registration card by mail (yes, I did it on the internet too
It's unfriendly (Score:1)
Here's a Linux PDA I think might be a winner. [invair.de]
And an advice: don't buy ANY Linux of WinCE-based PDA before you try a Palm first. You must understand what a PDA is for, whether you need it, and what level of friendliness you need, if you think a PDA can be useful to you.