TC on Windows CE hardware platform?

[bmarkus]

There are many devices around running Windows CE, mainly navigation devices. They typically 64-128 Mbyte RAM and same amount of built-in flash, USB, sound and card slot, GPS and maybe Bloetooth. This would be enough to run certain LINUX versions including TC and applications, but haven't find any port yet.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with CE software or hardware, but supprised a bit that can't find such.

Does anybody know a CE Linux? What is about a TC port?

[curaga]

WinCE runs on both x86 and ARM, so just seeing it there doesn't tell much.

[bmarkus]

WinCE runs on both x86 and ARM, so just seeing it there doesn't tell much.

The key question, is the usual CE hardware is LINUX compatible, I mean at least the hardware memory management to run LINUX, or CE dosn't require it?

I guess, Windows Mobile is much more demanding on hw.

[bmarkus]

Just found an interesting article:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/f/2/cf28517b-c2a9-4bf5-84e6-df7f8c93b4d1/linux-ce_comparison.doc

Quote:

However, most commercial Windows CE devices are based on hardware architectures designed specifically for Windows CE and some of the worst-supported commercial devices suffer from the lack of drivers. In contrast, very few mobile devices have been designed specifically for Linux. Furthermore, the open-source community is unable to support drivers for most mobile devices due to their closed architectures. A version of Linux has been made available for the previous generation of Compaq iPAQ. However, this was only possible because Compaq co-operated in producing a hardware abstraction layer for Linux. Where mobile devices are concerned, Linux users are just as much at the mercy of manufacturers for support as Windows CE users.

[curaga]

Looks like CE does demand a MMU, and so linux should run on most CE devices.

Nice find btw. That's true for PDAs and phones, but I thought we were talking more about thin clients, tablets, navigators?

[bmarkus]

That's true for PDAs and phones, but I thought we were talking more about thin clients, tablets, navigators?

I think largest market today is PNA and for sure there are only few OEM manufacturers using common hw solutions (not including TomTom and Garmin).

My PNA for example have 64M RAM, 128M flash, 2G built-in SD storage and ATLASIII CPU. I have seen the same hw with different brand names even in the local shops. So the situations is not so bad, I mean hw segmentation.

However just to learn CE platform, drivers, how to boot anything else would take a lot of time. There must be someone who is familiar with it But this would be a great to do it.