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embedded Linux on a CF adapter?

Dave Wurm Page Icon Posted 2017-04-25 7:36 PM
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Hi all,
I'm still making regular use of my Jornada 720/728. It works great for my mostly text based uses. I don't do any gaming or video streaming.

For awhile I was stymied with PowerPoint type presentations, until trying Margi Presenter-to-Go (CF card adapter). It provides full screen VGA, with limited animations. (Create the PPT with PowerPoint XP, and then use the Margi converter to convert and preview on the desktop computer.)

For me, the remaining weakness in the Jornada 7xx (and many other PDAs) is the lack of a good internet browser, and inability to provide VPN security.
With those things in mind, I've done some experimenting with Jlime. Unfortunately, the readily available browsers are also a bit dated for SSL usage. It probably is possible to set up VPN under Jlime. But it may not be worth the effort, since the browsers are not accepted by desired HTTPS sites.

Another option that I've given thought to (but have not tried), is to use the Jornada 7xx to control a Raspberry Pi device, via RDP or VNC. Conceptually, the Raspberry device would handle WiFi, VPN Security, and run a superior browser (https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/web-browser-released/), all with minimal taxing of the PDA device CPU.

The Raspberry Pi is quite small, and could be carried as an accessory, for use when needed, with connection to it via a wired Lan card plugged into the J 7xx PCMCIA slot. Does anyone have such a system up and running? If so, please steer me to the thread.

A cleaner solution would be to have the equivalent of a Raspberry Pi built-in to a CF card adapter, like the Wifi adapters that work with the J 7xx, but with advanced onboard computing functions. Perhaps something like this http://www.cdatas.com/index1.html would lend itself to providing the internet browsing and security features, in a plug-in adapter. What do you think?

Dave

Edited by Dave Wurm 2017-04-25 7:38 PM
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ntware Page Icon Posted 2019-06-03 6:15 PM
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Just to answer your question 2 years later, having an embedded linux device running on the PCMCIA slot is not bad. However, given the space constraints, it would be quite hard to make something powerful enough to be useful. Heat dissipation can also be another issue. To make things worse, VNC on the jornada is PAINFUL! It is just not fast enough to run it decently. RDP is a better option, but then you're stuck with Windows XP. I couldn't make the RDP client on the Jornada to connect to any of my Linux boxes. It connected to WinXP just fine. I wonder how well WinXP can be emulated by tiny ARM devices, as running a full x86 CPU on the PCMCIA slot is definitely not possible. You can see my VNC/RDP adventure in this post: https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=16257&st...

Perhaps a more useful solution would be to have a Windows XP server in the internet somewhere and then use the Jornada to connect to it.
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Dave Wurm Page Icon Posted 2019-06-03 7:19 PM
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ntware,
Thank you for your explanation. Obviously, the PPP possibility (under discussion at https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=18608&po...) is a better route.
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