[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by e-enker

Alright, lol.....I didnt meen to confuse anybody.##

What I would need the iliad to do is display a few websites, but from what Ive learned about the browsers of the iliad Im almost sure that those sites are not supported.

Depends on the sites and what they require.

I thought that maybe the simplest way to enhance the internet capabilities of the iliad would be to use another os. I thought that since its so simple to run another os on a laptop, it might be equally simple with the iliad. I hadnt thought of drivers though and I had presume that the source is available, including drivers.

Palm OS would have been the wrong one for what you wanted to do, even if it was possible. Extant browsers from Palm OS lag way behind browsers on other platforms. I have about six on my PalmOS PDA. A couple are more or less usable, and that's about the best I can say for them. I can connect to the Internet via Wifi and surf with it, but I do so only if I don't have another option.

And by "good" os I basically meant an os with better internet applications. On a second thought I also meant that a good os is an os that makes the most of the hardware, and I was under the impression that the os of the iliad is pretty limited compared to what the hardware would allow for.

Not exactly. The iLiad was designed to serve certain purposes, and the OS supplied was customized to do those things. What it does, it does well. When you take a device, and want to make it do things it wasn't designed to do, you'll have problems, regardless of what OS it uses.

I didnt mean any open source os, that was a wrong formulation. I meant any os with better internet capabilities.

It would pretty much have to be an open source OS to do what you want at all, since you would have to customize it for the platform, and that would require access to the source code.

Linux is fine for Internet access, if configured for it. See the Nokia Internet Tablets, based on a Linux kernel with the QT toolkit to handle the display.

So from what has been said so far I conclude that the basic message is that it is not possible to run another os on the iliad, and if then its too much work. Is that correct?

You don't need another OS. The iLiad runs Linux, which is a fine base for almost anything. You need the applications provided extended to do what you want.

But, yes, it's almost certainly too much work. If what you want to do is access the Internet from a mobile device. you are better served to get a device like the Nokia tablets, which are designed to do that. (you can get a Nokia 800 for about $200 on eBay.)

Why does the iliad have such a limited internet performance, are there just no better browsers available or is ts there another reason?

It's an electronic document viewer. Why should it have better internet performance? That's not what it's mainly intended to do.

It's like asking "Why does my Volkswagen has such a low top speed?" Easy. It's designed to be an economy car, used in situations where you don't need to go fast. High speed and economy are mutually exclusive.

And when irex make their source available, does that that mean that better browsers can be ported or will the iliad never be a better internet device than it already is?

Good question. Better browsers could be ported. But you would still have the question of connection speeds, lack of color support, and the fact that some things would be awful no matter what. Consider trying to display video on an eInk screen with the slow refresh...

Also thanks for the link to brighthand, Ive checked it out already.

It's one of the best places for mobile device information.
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Dennis