On Tue, Jan 20, 1998 at 08:40:50AM +0000, Dominic Sweetman wrote:
> Windows CE for MIPS requires memory management, which is good. None
> of the PDA processors don't have floating point hardware, which could
> be bad. NEC's CPUs are R4x00 (64-bit MIPS) and the Toshiba/Phillips
> are R3000-derivatives (32-bits); Linux is likely to be more familiar
> with the R4x00, but the differences are pretty localised.
>
> And of course you've got to persuade Linux to run with whatever puny
> memory they have - perhaps 8Mbyte of flash + 8Mbyte of RAM and no
> disk.
>
> Good luck, and I think you'll need it.
Actually from the technical point of view things aren't that bad for such
a bad point of view:
- some time ago somebody stripped a Linux kernel completly such that it was
possible to boot it without swap on a 1mb 386. We should be able to do
the same in 2mb.
- operation without fpa still isn't supported
- There is some GUI library available that is much leaner than X.
It think over the thumb it shouldn't be too hard to provide 4mb to application
programs with a nearly as complete API as we have now; even more with more
effort.
Talking about memory managment, anybody keen on porting Linux to the R4640
which only has base/bounds pairs for code/data? Would bring us closer to
a Cray port ;-)
> [And in my opinion, PDA's are useless without a usable input device,
> and tiny keyboards are useless. So I'm waiting and watching pens
> and voice, and if necessary prepared to wait a long time. But
> you don't have to agree...]
Which is why I had to buy a Intel laptop, grmpfff...
(Or how much many buckazoids would a Sparc laptop have cost me ...)
Ralf
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