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Dec. 14, 2005

[Updated Dec. 21] -- A pair of Palm OS based consumer electronic devices are well on the way toward running Linux. Matthew Mastracci's "Treo Linux" project has achieved a BusyBox prompt on a Palm Treo 650 smartphone, while Alex Osborne's LD Progress project has a GPE-based Linux environment running on a Palm LifeDrive.

Treo 650

Mastracci says his Treo Linux port should ultimately be able to control both the GSM and CDMA radios in the Treo, meaning that phone and Internet access functions may still be usable under Linux. The Linux firmware currently loads in memory, and uses an SD card for storage, making it possible to easily revert to the phone's native Palm OS after hacking sessions.

The Treo 650 is a popular smartphone that currently runs Palm OS and soon will be available in a version that runs Windows Mobile. Last spring, PalmSource CEO Dave Nagel said Palm had shipped more than 400,000 Treo 650s in the US.

Interestingly, when Palm CEO Ed Colligan was asked at the September debut of the Windows Mobile Treo whether Palm was also going to be rolling out a Linux Treo, he replied: "No. No, we don't need another operating system. Do not take developing a product on a whole new platform lightly."

Palm LifeDrive

Alex Osborne's LifeDrive project appears to be further along, with a full graphical GPE environment successfully ported to the device, and about half of the device's peripherals operational.

The Palm LifeDrive is a Palm OS PDA equipped with a 4GB hard drive. It shipped last May, and is the first Palm PDA to have a hard drive.

Further info

More information on the Treo 650 Linux project can be found here. More details about the LifeDrive Linux project can be found here. Both projects also have their own Wiki areas at handhelds.org. The Treo 650 wiki is here, while the LifeDrive wiki is here.

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