[geeks] PDA's

[vance at neurotica.com]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, Mike Meredith wrote:

> > I'm *not* absolutely sure that I want a Microdrive.  There are some
> > very large (>1GB) solid-state CF-II cards coming pretty cheap lately.
>
> The prices don't look that cheap on memoryx.net ... the price for a
> 2Gbyte CF card looks it's still in the 'pay extra for something new'
> category. And given there's at least two of us using nowhere near that
> amount, I'd say 512Mbytes would be enough to get started. Not my money
> though :)

When I start adding MP3's, then 512MB will start to get a little cramped.
I have a local source where I get newer CF (and SM and MS) media cheap.

> > I might do one of those.  If I do NetBSD, will I need to use swap?
>
> I'm not using swap on my Zaurus so you might get away without it.

I'll see if I can do it.

> > The limited number of write cycles on solid-state flash concerns me.
> > Am I right to be concerned.
>
> I've heard of people who use swap and haven't heard of any problems. I
> guess your CF card would go west a few years early if you swap to it.

Indeed.

> > > OPIE player works fine for me.
> >
> > That only works under Linux, though, right?
>
> Well the whole of OPIE is written for Linux, but it is open source so
> shouldn't be impossible to get working under NetBSD. And is probably
> worth making the effort unless you've got particular reasons for running
> X.

I want something that will work right now.  I don't want to put effort
into writing code to get it to work.

Peace...  Sridhar