The following comment on the recently demonstrated IMT-2000 Linux-based combination smartphone and PDA (story) has been issued by Trolltech . . .

Question: What's the difference between a Linux smartphone and an expensive paper-weight?

Answer (according to Trolltech): A good, compact GUI!

In one of the first demonstrations of just how small and powerful a GUI can be, an international group of technologists recently announced the completion of the IMT-2000, a CDMA smartphone based on the Embedded Linux operating system. The group, which includes PalmPalm Technology, SK Telecom Central R&D Laboratory, and Seoul National University, plans to release a beta version by the end of 2000, according to recent articles.

What was emphasized in the initial press surrounding the announcement was the exciting suite of technologies behind the GUI: the Tynux OS, PalmPalm's cleverly optimized version of Embedded Linux; the 206 MHz StrongARM processor from Intel; the superfast Bluetooth wireless interface; and a suite of small applications.

What was under emphasized, was the pivotal enabling role played by the GUI itself.

Built using Trolltech's Qt/Embedded ™, a cross platform C++ GUI toolkit and windowing system, the IMT-2000's GUI is an amazingly capable and intuitive interface. And it is the existence of such an interface that makes all the difference: without it, a phone is just a phone; with it, a phone becomes a tool for web access, PIM applications, MP3 audio, games, voice over IP (VoIP), and much more.

“I think it's important to note that a compact and powerful GUI is not just a 'nice feature,'” says Haavard Nord, the CEO of Trolltech. “It's an essential enabling technology–a necessary condition–for the evolution of the embedded systems market. Without this technology, screen-based products would be stuck where they are now–with cumbersome and arbitrary text interfaces. They would continue to suffer from the 'Unachievable Value Syndrome' that plagues all systems with complex interfaces. When the IMT-2000 development team chose Qt/Embedded, they got a stable, market-proven technology that is already delivering significant benefits in the smartphone/web device market.”

Minsuk Lee, PalmPalm's vice president of engineering, says that Qt/Embedded made the IMT-2000 group's short list “because it offered a lot of power and flexibility without requiring a lot of memory resources.” They chose it as the GUI/windowing system because “they needed a GUI that would provide easy and intuitive access to the capabilities of the smartphone.”

A review of Qt/Embedded's strengths shows the kind of functionality the development team got in just 2.5 MB of RAM . . .

• Small memory footprint — because Qt/Embedded is modular and scalable, it can be tailored to run in memory spaces as small as 700KB. The normal configurations range from 2 – 2.5 MB, which still allows Qt/Embedded to provide first-echelon functionality. Qt/Embedded's compactness and modularity let the Korean developers easily meet their requirement to use no more than 2.5MB of RAM for the GUI/windowing system.

• Short learning curve — Qt/Embedded allowed their programmers to work in familiar desktop environments and simply recompile for the target system — a huge plus in an arena where time-to-market is perhaps the crucial advantage.

• Sophisticated graphics — small displays benefit from three of Qt/Embedded's graphics capabilities: anti-aliased text; alpha-blended pixmaps; and the ability to take advantage of hardware-based graphics acceleration.

• A “theme engine” — another unique capability, Qt/Embedded's theme engine lets developers give a Qt/Embedded GUI whatever look they want. Many developers choose a “Windows” look and feel–but they are by no means limited to that. They can also make the GUI look like a Macintosh (including Aqua), like Photon, like various implementations of KDE — like literally any existing windowing system. Or, like something completely new and different.

• Access to full source code — unlike many toolkits and windowing systems, Qt/Embedded provides access to the full set of source code, which allows programmers to greatly shorten the product development, testing, debugging, and deployment cycle. Given the importance of time-to-market in this fast-moving field, Qt/Embedded offered a significant advantage here as well.

Another advantage provided by Qt/Embedded is access to thousands of existing Qt developers. Any application written in Qt in the Linux, Windows, or Unix environments can be made to run on a target embedded system by simply recompiling it. Therefore, the partnership that produced the IMT-2000 will have — instantly — a large base of experienced programmers for their smartphone. This obviates what is often the most severe limitation faced by a new product.

---

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.