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Although it is not very popular among the mobile device users, Linux based operating systems are making their way to ordinary mobile device users via major consumer electronics companies. Yes, you may have heard of all these but can you name few Linux based mobile operating systems out there? Let’s have a look at a few of these operating systems that were once labeled “geek” and now getting more attention.

Qtopia
Qtopia is used by a variety of mobile devices including PDAs, mobile phones, web pads and other mobile computing devices. This Linux based operating system features a windowing system, a development environment, internationalization and localization support, games, multimedia, productivity applications, internet applications, java integration and wireless support. Currently Qtopia is shipped with about 45 mobile devices while Sharp and Sony being among those brands.

GPE
GPE Palmtop Environment (GPE) is a project that aims to provide a free software environment for mobile devices running on Linux operating system. Although GPE looks like a single solution, it is actually a collection of independently developed software eventually bundled up together. Unlike Qtopia, GPE has fewer devices under its account. This is basically due to the objectives of the GPE development community. Originally it was planned to support four devices and the GPE community ported GPE to support another eight devices. When compared to other mobile operating system, GPE has a remarkable GUI attracting more Windows mobile operating system users. Same as Linux operating system, GPE is based on X Windows system and uses GTK+ for interfaces.

OpenZaurus
As a user of Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 mobile device, OpenZaurus is the operating system that I’m more passionate about. This operating system is specifically designed for Sharp mobile devices and it is based on Debian Linux distribution. Although it started as a separate and isolated development effort by Sharp Corporation, more community support was earned in the later stages until it eventually got integrated in to OpenEmbeded project which now provides a common framework for similar projects. However, on April 26, 2007, the end of OpenZaurus was announced.

OPIE
Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (OPIE) is a variant of Qtopia. OPIE is mainly focused on providing a Personal Information Management framework and productivity software. In that sense, this is a more professional platform among Linux based mobile operating systems. Compared to similar projects, OPIE demonstrate a slow evolution and which makes OPIE users a little uneasy. The downside however is that OPIE, just like GPE, supports only a very few mobile devices.