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Opie puts Linux in your hand
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By Larry Garfield, Tuesday 5 August 2003  
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The Opie project has reached its 1.0 milestone, offering a standardized Linux-based platform for a variety of handheld devices.
The Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (Opie) project has announced that the Opie 1.0 milestone has been reached, and the system is available now. OPIE is a GNU/Linux-based software package designed for portability across a large number of handheld devices from multiple manufacturers.
Opie began as an offshoot of Trolltech's Qtopia Linux-based system used on the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 and other devices. The Qtopia system is a handheld-targeted version of Qt, Trolltech's cross-platform development system, which is also the basis for Free Software projects such as the KDE Project, as well as the Opera web browser. Because Qt and Qtopia are both available under the GNU General Public License (GPL), the Opie team chose to take the available codebase and enhance it to make it richer and port it to more devices. As is common for Free Software projects, Opie has been available for some time, despite only just reaching official 1.0 status.
 | | Ill: Opie |
Despite its Zaurus roots, Opie is available for most of Sharp's Zaurus line and for most HP iPAQ handhelds. The former is available through the OpenZaurus distribution, a free drop-in replacement for the default software package on the Sharp Zaurus line. iPAQ users can get Opie with the Familiar distribution.
Opie is built upon several industry standard technologies. Some of the more significant ones include XML, IrDA infrared, and OBEX, the data format used by most handhelds to transfer certain types of data, such as business cards. Bluetooth support is also available on hardware that offers it. It also includes a host of available applications, including a full PIM suite, drawing applications, a multimedia player, and the Konqueror web browser, among other tools. It includes readers for the widely-popular PalmDoc e-book format, PDF files, and "Plucker" web clippings. The PIM suite is able to synchronize to Microsoft Outlook or to the KDE PIM suite, or to the recently-released Kolab Free Software groupware server. It is also fully themeable.
As mentioned, Opie is built on the GNU/Linux operating system, which now scales from small handhelds such as the Zaurus and iPAQs to large server clusters. As a result, it supports the full range of Linux desktop and server tools and functions, including solid networking support, remote login to servers over the network, and even the ability to run functional servers off of the handheld, although such tasks are limited by the hardware.
Opie is available free of charge under the GNU General Public License from the Opie web site, or via the free OpenZaurus and Familiar handheld software packages.
Additional screenshots from Opie 1.0 are available on the following pages.
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| Hands-on impressions, news, reviews, prices and release dates; now all-in-one-page: |
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| Hands-on impressions, news, reviews, prices and release dates; now all-in-one-page: |
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