Complete Newbie

Please be patient, i'm very new to Linux (as in never used it)

I have a Jornada 680e, a 128MB CF card and a headache. I'm fed up with Windows CE not working right, so am considering Linux, but i have a few questions:

1) Does this damage Windows CE in any way, in case i want to go back to the dark side?
2) Is everything ran from the compact flash card?
3) Do any GUI's run on the 680 with Linux
4) Can I still connect to my computer (which is Windows XP)
5) How do I install without a Linux based desktop (school computers, not allowed to touch operating system)
6) If I do install, any good word-processors? (Word compatable)

Any help very much appreciated...

EDIT: Thought of one more question: does anything stop working with linux (sound/touchscreen...)

Edited by chazco 2005-11-15 3:09 AM

hey i dont know much about linux myself but want to try this... i like wince, and it doesnt cause me headaches (maybe if you told us about the problems... or upgrade to hpc2000 ..), but i'm curious
i'm afraid on a 680e with 16 mb ram you will not have a usable GUI
it won1t damage wince, it is in ROM and linux cannot erase that.
to format your CF card for linux, you can boot from a linux live cd (no install needed!!), or can format the CF even under XP but it is a bit more difficult i heard..

Edited by cmonex 2005-11-15 4:38 AM

EDIT: Duplicate

Edited by chazco 2005-11-15 8:30 AM

WinCE is terrible (its not HPC2000) on this device, slow to respond and nothing runs on it. HPC2000 would be better, but like i said i cannot upgrade. No chance at all of a GUI for Linux on this?

Does Jlime provide a GUI on this device?

i'm not sure, you could ask the jlime guys on their forum on jlime.com

Okay. Has anyone actually done this before?

cmonex...you have done this before. Check the facts please...

Yes, you can get a gui on here. You can get a gui on an msdos pc with 640k of ram. And it is somewhat usable

I believe the gui that jlime uses is opie. And that is plenty usable. Matchbox would also work. All light gui's need is about 4mb of ram, and considering that CE with its explorer.exe gui is just over 2mb...

The only real ram usage of linux is the kernel and startup programs (which could be from just a few mb to over 60), and the applications you run. So no worries about the gui, the only real problems right now are getting suspend to work. As always.

Jlime is usable, works out of the box, and you really should try it.

I second PS's post.

Even an old Pentium machine with 8mb ram can have a Linux GUI.

try JLime

Edited by matrixcore 2005-11-16 12:42 AM

Okay. Does anyone know if its possible to set this up from Windows (xp on desktop), since i'm not allowed to install Linux - or can anyone tell me how to do this with a live CD?

Will i still have a good text editor and the ability to sync/copy with the serial cable?

Edited by chazco 2005-11-16 2:20 AM

SOMEWHAT?

thats my point.
even CE is slow on that J680... what do you expect from linux?

Edited by cmonex 2005-11-16 4:53 AM

I'm trying it now...

Its booting... It seems a lot quick already

It works! Once you've got past the CE boot part everything runs really quickly.

All I need now is:
- a gui
- someone to tell me how to switch off without reseting

Anyone know?

Geez cmonex. It is useable. You can get many X window managers running on the 680, and they will be fully operational. Yes, that means you can use every feature.

chazco, it would do you good if you looked into things first. If you went to the site, you would learn that full suspend does not work. By searching this forum, you would learn that there is no way to shut it off without it resetting. By going to the site, you would learn that it has opie built in. If you searched google, you would know that to start the X gui in Linux, you type startx.

These questions have been answered before - and I don't like repeating myself.

my primary concern is speed...

Edited by cmonex 2005-11-16 8:02 PM