The N810, Lack of PIM apps, and Palm OS VM
Friday September 19, 2008
So, about the biggest complaint that I have with the N810 thus far is that it doesn’t have good, syncable-with-my-Linux/KDE-desktop PIM apps. At least, none that I’ve seen yet. And yes, it would be super neato if I could run KDE PIM apps (korganizer, kaddressbook, etc.) on the N810, but that still doesn’t address the syncable-with-my-Linux/KDE-desktop problem. I have discovered, though, that the Access people (those who bought the Palm OS or something) are providing a Garnet (Palm OS) VM for the Maemo platform!!! You can find out more about it here and download it/install it on your N810 pretty easily.
What this means is that you can run all of your Palm applications on your N810! I’ve not tested this extensively yet, and I intend to try installing some of the Palm apps that I have on my real Palm devices on the Garnet VM on my N810 and see how it fares this weekend. But the coolness of this is that via the Garnet VM, you can have PIM applications (albeit not as sexy as what will hopefully eventually be available for the Mameo platform natively), but most definitely syncable with your Linux desktop through KPilot!!
Be on the lookout for a post from Bertjan explaining more about this. =:)
I think kdepim + opensync are quite valid contenders. Unfortunately, that thought is many years old, and not much has changed.
If only opensync was written using c++/qt, then I might have a chance at understanding and patching it 🙁
Last I tried it, the Garnet PIM alarms did not wake my N800 up from sleep, so it was pretty useless for calendar and somewhat slow for quick jotting down of notes.
@Lynoure: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. Plus, the fact that you have to have the Garnet VM running all the time anyway. *sigh* =:(
I have been tempted to start writing my own PIM software for the n810 but I am so swamped in so many other projects. However if someone else wants to take on the project lead, I would be happy enough contributing when I can.