4 Mobile Computing With Linux; Laptops - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 - ADMINISTRATION Administration Manual

Mobile Computing with Linux
Mobile computing is mostly associated with laptops, PDAs and cellular phones (and
the data exchange between them). Mobile hardware components, such as external hard
disks, flash drives, or digital cameras, can be connected to laptops or desktop systems.
A number of software components are involved in mobile computing scenarios and
some applications are tailor-made for mobile use.

14.1 Laptops

The hardware of laptops differs from that of a normal desktop system. This is because
criteria like exchangeability, space requirements and power consumption must be taken
into account. The manufacturers of mobile hardware have developed standard interfaces
like PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association), Mini PCI
and Mini PCIe that can be used to extend the hardware of laptops. The standards cover
memory cards, network interface cards, ISDN (and modem cards) and external hard
disks.
TIP: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Tablet PCs
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server also supports Tablet PCs. Tablet PCs come with a
touchpad/digitizer that allows you to use a digital pen or even fingertips to
edit data right on the screen instead of using mouse and keyboard. They are
installed and configured much like any other system. For a detailed introduction
to the installation and configuration of Tablet PCs, refer to
Tablet PCs (page 185).
Chapter 16, Using
Mobile Computing with Linux
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