Symbian

[AdamRav]

Now that the Symbian OS is Open Source can it be ported to the Pandora just like the Android OS ???

Any news on this would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[OrR]

My guess is that it should be possible but would probably take a little more effort. The question is, what do we need it for? Symbian games? Well, maybe, but it would be great if we could run them on top of the Linux system so we don't have to reboot the Pandora all the time. Maybe in a VM?
The same is also true for Android: It would be great to get Android games (and other software) running in the standard Linux OS. Is that realistically possible?

 

[GPJosh]

Yeah, the answer from the previous thread seems to be maybe, but why? Until that question is answered, its unlikely that someone will try to port it.

 

[kingoddball]

Symbion does not seem like a good OS for a device like the Pandora.
This is a full computer, just tiny form.

Symbion is terrible even on mobile.

Nokia/Erikkson only released the OS to open source community because they knew the OS world could make it a better system and make far better use of it and make their piss weak phones better

 

[urjaman]

IIRC (i went for the sources online the day they came up) the symbian EKA2 kernel is compiled using the ARM RVCT compiler, ...

http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Kernel_and_Hardware_Services_Package :

Currently the kernel and hardware services package can only be built using the ARM RVCT compiler, therefore there prerequisite that you have a licensed version installed.

"Licensed" sounds bad.

And remember that Symbian != S60 (or any other UI+stuff-kit on top of symbian). TechView (or what it was, something like that) would propably not be the most appealing symbian UI you've seen.

So, summary: Porting symbian would not be easy, and i see pretty much no benefits to it.

 

[AdamRav]

The reason i asked was

1: i seen Android beiang ported

2: Theres a few games on symbian which i like, if not then im sure normal java games would easily run on the pandora?

in conclusion i wouldnt be put off buying a pandora if symbian is not ported i was just curious thats all, thanks for everyones replies

 

[cobaltage]

We have yet to see Symbian ported to any non-Nokia hardware platform since it went open source. I would recommend waiting to see when that happens in order to check out its potential utility.