Running Puppy on a Tablet PC

[jamalexa]

I am getting ready to buy a low cost tablet pc. Is there a version of puppy that can run on a tablet that runs Android 2.1? I read the post on running the Android App kit.The only other posts I found were from 2007.

[buford]

i wish, any luck?

[jamalexa]

There is just a lot of theory when it comes to puppy on a tablet. It has to do with the chip set that the tablets use. I bought a Coby Kyros MID 7015 tablet. I am amazed the number of useful programs that can run on just 256mb of ram. It runs Android 2.1. I know that the android os is just linux but not much work is being done to port any other linux distro to the particular cpu that runs this or other tablets. The newer tablets will be running Intel's I series and windows 7. But the price for those tablets as well as the IPad's are well out of my reach. I might as well by a laptop or netbook. But who knows, there are discussions on other threads. do a search of this forum.

[starhawk]

Most of those tablets are based on a processor family called ARM. Android can run on this because it's designed for mobile phones (or cell phones if you live in the States), which also use ARM processors.

ARM is a /completely/ different form of processor from x86 (which is the family you're used to if you have a PC or a new Mac), PowerPC (older Macs), or anything else. Apples and oranges at best.

Theoretically, you could port Puppy to ARM, but it would be a huge undertaking and probably take a long time. FWIW, the folks at Debian /might/ be able to help you, as they have a port that works with (some) ARM stuff.

Oh, and by the way, most of those tablets are built entirely differently from a regular PC. They don't have a proper hard drive, but rather storage-on-a-chip (similar to a media card) called ROM -- and don't ask for very much of it! (We're talking a few gig here -- or less.) They have a LOT less of that magical memory we call RAM. Heck, half of 'em (or so) don't even have USB ports!

Again, theoretically, it's doable. But then, so is antigravity and Star Trek's warp drive Get what I mean?

[disciple]

theoretically, it's doable. But then, so is antigravity and Star Trek's warp drive

It is waaaay more doable than antigravity or a warp drive.

Theoretically, you could port Puppy to ARM, but it would be a huge undertaking and probably take a long time.

Would it not be possible to simply build a Puppy using Woof, from ARM packages?

[chrome307]

Have you checked out Barry K's blog ?

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02188

[Ray MK]

Now that does look interesting

makeNewDir2makeNewPup?

If anyone can do it, Barry can.

Imagine - Puppy Basics on embedded (whatever) chip

and all your sfs's, pet's, etc. on a 2gig or whatever size microSD card.

My cheapo phone has one of them slot's - bootable MicroSD card with PuppyuC ?

Am I dreaming?

[technosaurus]

dpup would be a good start but you would need to replace grub with a different boot loader ... xvkbd would also be necessary

[runtt21]

May need to work on xorg too, Coby's resolution is 800 x 480. I have a friend who just got that same one. He has his rooted and has the android market access. I am waiting on them to release the 7025.

[jamalexa]

Word has it that the new Coby tablets will be harder to root.

[runtt21]

I am sure these dudes will find a way....

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/coby-tablets/

[technosaurus]

Word has it that the new Coby tablets will be harder to root.

probably because they are so cheap that there is no way to connect to them... coby usually removes everything that isn't absolutely necessary.

[jamalexa]

From what I have seen the price for Coby's new tablets will be 2 to 3x the price of the MID 7015. About $350 US and up.

[jamalexa]

Has anyone checked out the linux os called Angstrom? It is used to run the Archos 28 tablet. A blog is here - http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/blog/koen