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HnDE (was PDE)

Submitted by Farcaller on 24 October, 2006 - 20:31. Linux4Palm

It seems that Opie development is frozen and unmaintained (correct me if I'm wrong). However I prefer Opie over GPE (KDE over Gnome, Qt over GTK+ ), so I'm interested in new Opie version.

I've managed to compile latest Qtopia Core (4.2.0) for arm and even wrote some small qt/c app for palm:

(screenshot grabbed from TT3's framebuffer, the bottom part is a test for plugin framework).

I wonder if somebody else is interested in my PDE (Palm Desktop Environment, similar to KDE but smaller). If there would be other developers whe should think about contacting Opie team and discussing qt/c issues with them. If I would be on my own than you'll see only two apps in PDE: book reader and audio player

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Hmm, how does the memory

Submitted by Alex on 24 October, 2006 - 23:03.

Hmm, how does the memory usage compare for qt/c and embedded qt or whatever it is OPIE uses? Also do you think it would be difficult to port OPIE apps to qt/c?

You might want to think of a different name that doesn't involve Palm's trademarks. Imagine if I wrote "Microsoft Whinehack".

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You can call it HDE,

Submitted by fahhem on 25 October, 2006 - 01:48.

You can call it HDE, HacknDev Desktop Environment, if HnD agrees. Or I like "Nopie".

I'm interested in spending some time on this project, but I'm worried of spreading my time too thin. I'll get back to you if and when I have free time spaces.

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FYI, qtopia-core recently

Submitted by pfalcon on 25 October, 2006 - 04:20.

FYI, qtopia-core recently was added to OE.dev too.

About OPIE maintenance: here's official call for maintainership from one of OPIE leading developers: http://handhelds.org/hypermail/opie-devel/30/3063.html . Careful reader may notice it talks about maintaining OPIE packages in OE, but thinking reader will get idea what state OPIE itself has, if people who spent years of their lives on OPIE no longer interested in just making results of their hard work being available to wide audience of end users.

Why? Partial answers are here:
http://handhelds.org/hypermail/opie-devel/29/2974.html
http://zecke.blogspot.com/2006/10/joys-of-freedom-rip-opie.html
http://blogs.qtdeveloper.net/archives/2006/10/23/the-death-of-opie-is-greatly-exaggerated/

Why I write this here? To pass another warning: unless someone who really needs OPIE (hint) step out to maintain OPIE-related stuff for *everyone*, there will be the same feudalism with OPIE remnant-forks as it is now with kernel ports.

So beware, a careless hacker, one sweet day you'll be in the same situation as those people are now, telling that what they got from OPIE is great experience on how to develop UIs for handhelds and understanding, that OPIE way was a dead-end.

(lopata is here, of course)

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Alex wrote:Hmm, how does the

Submitted by Farcaller on 25 October, 2006 - 12:29.
Alex wrote:
Hmm, how does the memory usage compare for qt/c and embedded qt or whatever it is OPIE uses? Also do you think it would be difficult to port OPIE apps to qt/c?
qt/c has smaller memory footprint than qt/e. Regarding port of opie to qt/c... it's way harder than to port KDE from qt3 to qt4. A lot of time spent on useless )IMHO) task. We can reuse opie experience and parts of code, but not port it.
Alex wrote:
Imagine if I wrote "Microsoft Whinehack"

fahhem wrote:
You can call it HDE, HacknDev Desktop Environment, if HnD agrees.
HnD wouldn't mind
pfalcon wrote:
Why I write this here? To pass another warning: unless someone who really needs OPIE (hint) step out to maintain OPIE-related stuff for *everyone*, there will be the same feudalism with OPIE remnant-forks as it is now with kernel ports.
I've started porting linux to TT3 because I needed to get more from my POS-powered handheld. There were no other TT3 users waiting for port. I was on my own. Now TT3 port has several developers and even more testers/users. If nobody like my PDE(HnDE) idea I'll code it on my own, because I need something more usable than opie/gpe. However I'd appreciate any help and suggestions.

Opie team tried to make a product compatible with Qtopia. I'm not going to do so. I want a usable thing. IMHO, POS is very nice thing in terms of basic apps (PIM, etc.) usability. So I'm going to make some POS-like thing based on Qt and linux.

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I am interested in this as

Submitted by e_heinemann on 27 October, 2006 - 13:40.

I am interested in this as well. Back when I used a Zaurus I was very interested in PicoGUI, but the author(s) lost interest. I know Java very well, but I only wrote a few C++ apps in college. Until I get up to speed on C++ again as well as learning QT it will take some time before I can contribute as much as I would like.

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Basic wiki created at

Submitted by Farcaller on 27 October, 2006 - 15:46.

Basic wiki created at http://trac.hackndev.com/hnde/

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How's this project going on?

Submitted by codus on 16 August, 2007 - 14:55.

How's this project going on? I'm very interested, but I get the impression that it's pretty dead?

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Sad to hear that opie doesnt

Submitted by dubb on 16 August, 2007 - 18:46.

Sad to hear that opie doesnt have much further development. I would be interested in this project but I can do very little. Maybe as a beta tester. But if had some knowledge on whatever you are doing I would jump in and start working on a solution. I know a little bit of programming but nothing to do with porting or linux. It should be on my things to learn list. Anyhow, PDE or HnD I'm all for it.

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