Slowly but surely, ultra mobile PC owners are trying Linux on their devices. First we saw John Tokash succesfuly boot Damn Small Linux on the eo/easybook/t700 and we even had some success ourselves with it on the Easybook P7. Then we saw Mozy.org report success with Linux on the Sony UX series and now, Linux on the Samsung Q1. But there are problems. Here we discuss some of the issues and put some questions to Sascha Pallenberg, founder and MD of the VIA-focused Linux distribution epiOS .
There’s a common thread in all of the reports we see about Linux on UMPC’s and thats the lack of support for the special features of the UMPC. Small screen resolution, touch-screen hardware and handwriting resolution are the most obvious but there are other UMPC-specific hardware components to consider. GPS, fingerprint readers, integrated cameras. If these are new hardware items with specific windows-only drivers (rather than stock items on a USB bus for example) then it could be impossible to get complete support for Linux on some devices.
One Linux distribution that has been working with mini-pc’s, touch screen technology and focusing heavily on providing support for specific VIA CPU and chipset features that are not supported under Microsoft Windows is the epiOS linux distribution . epiOS started life back in March 2004 with its first development version and since then, the epiOS team, have made great moves forward. Last year they issued the first public-release version and this year, epiOS has been busy developing complete mini-pc designs based on advanced VIA cpu’s and chipsets. Some of these were shown at the Computex trade show in Taipei last month.
We’ve recently spoken with epiOS founder and MD, Sascha Pallenberg about the whole ‘Linux on UMPC’ issue and put some of our questions to him which he was kind enough to answer.
Steve: Hi Sascha. Thanks for agreeing to answer our questions. First of all, what did you think about the whole ultra mobile PC ‘buzz’ back in March.
Sascha: Well, at the beginning I thought it was just another hype made by the marketing offices of the global hardware and software industry. These devices are pretty big and not really that handy at all. The power consumption is still much to high to use without recharging the device after some 2 or 3 hours. And why should i get rid of my PDA with any 600 Mhz Strong ARM cpu that nearly can do all the stuff the UMPC’s are made for? Well I guess the UMPC’s we see right now are just the very beginning of a market that needs to be developed. In my opinion it would be really interesting to see a device that is a little bit smaller and more handy than the recent ultra mobile PC solutions. Add UMTS, Wlan, GPS and maybe GSM to it and it could become a real personal mobile device.
Steve: There are many memories of the Tablet PC marketing being stirred up by the ultra mobile PC launch. Do you think that there’s a place for UMPC’s and will it be more succesful than the tablet PC?
Sascha: When we are taking a look at the specific market of UMPC’s i would say: there might be one. They are aiming for a market that is placed between PDA and subnotebook users. I guess at the moment it’s all about creating a demand for these devices. If the manufacturers will get rid of the above mentioned disadvantages, there should be a chance but at the moment I am not sure if it will have any impact on the consumer market. Think about police stations, fire departments, hospitals etc. In my opinion a ultra mobile PC device can be much more usable than the tablet pc’s we’ve seen so far.
Steve: It’s clear now that UMPCs are pretty much just standard PC’s, minaturised. There’s really no specialised hardware in use so do you think there’s a possibility for a Linux-based operating systems in these devices?
Sascha: Generally we are talking about platforms with pretty low performance cpu’s and chipsets. The current *Windows* XP *Tablet PC* Edition has been developed for more powerful systems so you would never get the best performance out of your ultra mobile PC device with such an OS even though there are already some specific applications for ultra mobile PC devices. A specific Linux distribution might be interesting if it would be developed for the specific hardware of these platforms.
Steve: We’ve managed to boot Linux on the Paceblade Easybook P7 ultra mobile PC but there was a lot of support missing. The synaptics pointer, the touch screen and the screen size support. Do you believe that these problems can be overcome easilly and what about support for leading edge technoliges like built-in web cams, fingerprint readers, specialised hardware engines.
Sascha:To be honest the synaptic pointer, touch screen and the support of the specific resolution shouldn’t be a problem. There are already a couple of kiosk and POS systems based on Linux so it would be just a matter of getting all the documentation from the manufacturer to optimize the drivers to the specific hardware. Missing driver support for a hardware device is not a matter of Linux itself but a matter of the manufacturer. More and more companies are joining open source and are developing drivers for linux so there is not much hardware anymore that’s not supported by Linux. Webcam’s are still a very big problem. It’s really a pitty that these big manufacturers like Logitech are not supporting Linux but it should be pretty easy for a big OEM to push them a little bit in the right direction but due to the fact that Logitech is aiming at the consumer market with their webcam devices there is no demand for it at the moment. Fingerprint readers shouldn’t be a problem at all cause there are already some solutions out there based on Linux.
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Steve: epiOS is focused on VIA low-power CPU and chipset support, does it run on the Tablet Kiosk Eo / Paceblade Easybook P7 via-based UMPC’s
Sascha: At the moment we are still focusing on the EPIA platform but we are
working on a new version that is optimized for the recent VIA chipsets,
so we will give it a try as soon as we can.
We’ve already released some customized OEM solutions of epiOS with
touchscreen support that are aiming at the Narrowcasting and KIOSK
market but in general we have no experiences
with the specific components of these devices but we will take a very
close look at it in the future.
Steve: In your VTF presentation slides you said that Linux could be the best choice for getting the most performance out of specific VIA hardware. We’ve seen problems with power-saving states and hardware decoding support on the eo so could Epios help?
Sascha: Hardware decoding is big problem for the Windows users with a VIA
chipset platform cause it’s just not working or you need to install some
very hard to find codecs on your system. For example on the CLE266 and CN400 chipsets you need to be sure to install Power DVD 4.0 or the Ulead DVD Player to get the mpeg2 hardware decoding to work (well mpeg4 with the CN400 wasn’t possible at all). We think that’s absolutely not usable for the average consumer cause most of them are buying these platforms because of their highly integrated chipsets and these specific hardware features.
The recent epiOS release supports the CLE266 and CN400 chipsets without
any problems that means your getting full mpeg2 and padlock
(Cryptography) support. To give you an impression of how much performance
we can get out of these chipsets: We’ve introduced a KIOSK system at the
VIA Technology Forum that is based on an EPIA M10000. That 1Ghz cpu can
be compared to a Intel PIII 450 so this is a really low performance processor! During DVD playback we are facing a cpu load of only 6-9% which is pretty competitive if you compare it to the cpu load your getting on any 3.4 Ghz system. So for multimedia playback, epiOS is already saving power cause less cpu-load means less power consumption. Suspend to RAM and other power saving features are already in our focus and the upcoming release for C7 processors will support a couple of power saving features.
Steve: Is your company looking at providing support for UMPC’s. How about an Epios ‘ultra mobile PC edition’
Sascha: As i already mentioned we will take a very close look at the VIA based ultra mobile PC devices. I will try to get my hands on some ultra mobile PC devices when i am
going to Taipei again in the next couple of weeks.
Right now i just can’t promise if there will be a ultra mobile PC edition and when
it would be released but we are definately interested in working around
with these systems.
Steve: In the speaker notes for the Via Technology Forum is states that you’re starting anew venture in the U.S. called Tiptouch. Can you tell us anything about it?
Sascha: epiOS is already cooperating with a dutch hardware developing company
for nearly a year right now. The founder of that company, Hans Cools,
brought up the idea of working closer together cause we both
see the demand for a hardware specific operating system even for some
consumer markets. So they founded a new company in Boston, MA and
invited us to join them.
For epiOS itself this is a great opportunity cause we will get more
developers (another well known Linux developer for EPIA platforms will
join us but that’s a different story) which will means we can provide
the community and our customers with faster release cycles. Of course the chance of getting a “ultra mobile PC edition” released is much bigger due to this.
A big thanks to Sascha and Epios for the interview. The new company sounds interesting and we wish you the best with that.
One of the big big advantages we see with Linux on UMPC’s is that its easy to tailor a distribution on install. With Windows XP variants this is just not possible. You get everything whether you like it or not. Embedded windows XP is a step in the right direction but again, only the manufacturer decides what software a customer can use.
Companies like Nokia and Pepperpad are doing great things with Linux and are able to tailor the software in order to keep hardware requirements and costs down. To us, this seems the right way to be doing things rather than fitting hardware specifications to a full desktop operating system. The user learning curve might be longer but the customer might decide that advantages in efficiency and costs are worth the extra learning curve.
At Carrypad we plan to keep up the promotional work with Linux and hope to see more action in the future. When we finally decide on a first ultra mobile PC to buy (we’re waiting for those VX700-based Mobits X15-7 to surface before we decide!) we’ll be right in there trying to help out wherever we can.
Don’t forget that at umpcportal.com we’re also contributing to a Linux forum . We would love to see reader comments there.
