We had something like this in 2001. It was called the Agenda vr3 and it ran a full X session with the FLTK in 16meg of RAM. However, the history of PDA's that run linux is mostly lost since LinuxDevices.com doesn't really exist anymore. I owned several of these including Agenda VR3, Vtech Helio, Zaurus, etc. It was quite a nice system even without wireless unless you count IrDA. It used FTP over RS-232 for installing software using a primitive packaging system. The little linux distros for these devices didn't really take off until the Zaurus SL-5500 took off by going on sale for $220 on the home shopping network in 2003, and someone developed the packing system called ipk which was a little more intelligent and reminiscent of Slackware's packing system.
Zaurus specs : Intel SA-1110 StrongARM processor running at 206 MHz, has 64 MB of RAM and 16MB Flash
NOTE: This could play MP3's, MP4 at 320x240, run an SSH server, etc.
I'm surprised there aren't more systems out there, but a lot of these linux devices in the 2000's (the aught years) were just other systems cannibalized for linux like the iPaq line. Eventually some people put this together in to something called Familiar Linux and trying to standardize the whole thing. handhelds.org doesn't exist anymore, though.
The whole openembedded (OE) system showed promise and came from the guy who made Gentoo, but it got mostly abandoned and merged in to other projects (YOCTO) when he went to work for Microsoft.
I kind of gave up on this all when I started developing for iPhone OS 3. It just worked with regards to wireless, and I realized I was more interested in the application layer anyway. Before 2020, you could get an iPhone 5s for about $20 on ebay, so it really had all I wanted including GPS.
There was someone who put together a site called http://pocketworkstation.org/ which isn't in the internet archive (archive.org) that had a whole LaTeX system working in Window Maker on the various Zaurus models. It was a scaled down desktop with 7 bit fonts, but it could be VNC into and used. Fun times.
Someone had XFree86 Server ported to Zaurus' Qtopia environment as an app. I didn't understand what `export DISPLAY=:0` meant back then but I could just do that. That was objectively far more awesome compared to their later Windows Mobile offerings developed in cooperation with WILLCOM.
e: ran a search on my disk for "\.ipk" and got a few files. Emacs, gtk2, konqueror, minicom, nano, prism3 driver, xmms, XQt, Blackbox ... why did I have `make` for Zaurus!? There is no way I can satisfy GPL obligations but do anyone want these archived? Right now it's on a nonredundant storage.
Not only that but these were older processors which in 2003 and before, it was a SoC in name only. They didn't put 30 to 60 cores on these embedded processors until the mid-2000's.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/marrying-linux-and-the-...
Agenda VR3 specs : Processor: 66 MHz 32 bit NEC VR4181 MIPS; Memory: 8 MB of RAM plus 16 MB of Flash Memory
NOTE: This could play mp3's while running an FTP server.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030219081647/http://www.linuxd...
Zaurus packages : https://www.zaurus.org.uk/download/cacko/feed/
Zaurus specs : Intel SA-1110 StrongARM processor running at 206 MHz, has 64 MB of RAM and 16MB Flash
NOTE: This could play MP3's, MP4 at 320x240, run an SSH server, etc.
I'm surprised there aren't more systems out there, but a lot of these linux devices in the 2000's (the aught years) were just other systems cannibalized for linux like the iPaq line. Eventually some people put this together in to something called Familiar Linux and trying to standardize the whole thing. handhelds.org doesn't exist anymore, though.
https://www.drdobbs.com/packing-linux-on-ipaq/199200756
The whole openembedded (OE) system showed promise and came from the guy who made Gentoo, but it got mostly abandoned and merged in to other projects (YOCTO) when he went to work for Microsoft.
https://www.openembedded.org/wiki/Main_Page https://docs.yoctoproject.org/
I kind of gave up on this all when I started developing for iPhone OS 3. It just worked with regards to wireless, and I realized I was more interested in the application layer anyway. Before 2020, you could get an iPhone 5s for about $20 on ebay, so it really had all I wanted including GPS.
There was someone who put together a site called http://pocketworkstation.org/ which isn't in the internet archive (archive.org) that had a whole LaTeX system working in Window Maker on the various Zaurus models. It was a scaled down desktop with 7 bit fonts, but it could be VNC into and used. Fun times.
EDIT: formatting and specs for low end devices