Familiar Linux is a replacement for Windows CE on iPAQ machines and other personal digital assistants (PDAs). It can use OPIE or GPE Palmtop Environment palmtop environments. Familiar Linux is a complete operating system with many applications. Windows CE for Handheld PC 3. ... HP iPAQ HX2110 iPAQ presently refers to a Pocket PC and personal digital assistant first unveiled by Compaq in April 2000; the name was borrowed from Compaqs earlier iPAQ Desktop Personal Computers. ... palmOne Tungsten T5 Personal digital assistants (also called PDAs) are handheld devices that were originally designed as personal organizers, but became much more versatile over the years. ... OPIE (Open Palmtop Integrated Environment) is a completely Open Source based graphical user environment for PDAs and other devices running Linux. ... The GPE Palmtop Environment or simply GPE aims to provide a Free Software GUI environment for palmtop and handheld computers running the GNU/Linux operating system. ... An operating system is a special computer program that manages the relationship between application software, the wide variety of hardware that makes up a computer system, and the user of the system. ...
Package system
Familiar distribution provide user applications in form of ipkg packages. This package system similar to Debiandpkg. Debian, organized by the Debian Project, is a widely used distribution of free software developed through the collaboration of volunteers from around the world. ... dpkg is the base of the Debian package management system. ...
Filesystem
Most contemporary PDAs use Flash memory for storing user data. Familiar utilises the JFFS2filesystem, designed especially for NAND memory devices. A USB Flash Memory Device Flash memory is a form of EEPROM (Electrically-Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) that allows multiple memory locations to be erased or written in one programming operation. ... ... See Filing system for this term as it is used in libraries and offices In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. ...
Because Linux is covered under the GPL (see Resources later in this article), anyone interested in customizing Linux to his PDA, palmtop, or wearable device can download the kernel and applications freely from the Internet and begin porting or developing.
Linux Devices is a comprehensive site with press releases, quick references, news, and feature reporting on all things Linux and embedded.
The IBM Linux wristwatch is an example of a tiny embedded device running Linux; one of the authors of this article, Vishal Kulkarni, was involved.
The Familiar Project is composed of a group of loosely knit developers all contributing to creating the next generation of PDA OS.
Familiar v0.8.4 for the iPAQ h3600, h3700, h3800, h3900, h5400, and h5500 series, and Siemens Simpad.
For Familiar 0.8.x and newer, source code is available from http://familiar.handhelds.org/source/, patches are contained in the OpenEmbedded metadata or more recently the Familiar build tree.
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