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Old 26th March 2010
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by guitarscn View Post
...I'm wondering if it's possible to install BSD on any of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
The possibility of getting one of the free BSD's on your phone is slim, but several phones exist running Linux..
Given the nature of the OP's questions, I'm taking this comment one step further.

While a number of cell phone vendors may be able to make the claim that their devices run Linux, it is not stock off-the-shelf Linux (nor even a stock Linux kernel...) just as the hardware is not identical to off-the-shelf computers. In other words, the operating system used within cell phones is highly stripped & tweaked to the specific needs of the hardware found the device.

Yes, a *BSD can be installed (Danger is built on top of a NetBSD core...), but it will take an experienced embedded programmer significant time to do the customization (After all, it is custom hardware...), & the result will not be identical to what can be found on a commodity desktop.

The goal of using a known kernel such as Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc. as the basis of specialized embedded devices is to take advantage of a vetted code base to provide basic resource management -- memory management, multiple processes, interprocess communication, providing a working network stack in a minimal environment -- code that doesn't need to be reinvented. Expecting common userland roadmarks such as X (which is a resource pig...) may be too much in some instances. Constraining costs & physical space requirements are much more important in the embedded world than providing a lush GNOME-friendly interface.

To get a feel for the added constraints embedded developers must consider, read Dale Rahn's (one of OpenBSD's developers...) interview on tweaking OpenBSD for ARM processors:

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1393496

Note that the article references Symbian as being a major player in the embedded market. Wind Rivers (who for a short time provided funding for the NetBSD Project...) is another who provided the base platform for NASA's Mars rovers.
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