Status of gprs? (and a bit of a hello world)

[Simon]

Hi there,
  i'm new to smartphones, i recently got a used HTC TyTN (herm100),
it's got winmobile on it and i cant stand it much longer!  I use the
phone primarily as a modem connection (i rarely talk, sometimes sms,
but mostly uses data on my pc).  I'm ok with linux, i meant i have
gentoo installed on my 3 PCs at home and on my host online, i'm pretty
good at working with grub and i've done dual booting a lot in the
past.  But...  smartphones are a bit different...

I'd like to understand the basic concept of the hardware, this will
help me understand the rest.
If i got it right, the device will start and its CPU is instructed to
read and execute whatever is in the EEPROM (called ROM i think at most
places).  This eeprom would probably be similar to the bios of a PC.
So this "thing" that gets loaded is probably some kind of bootloader
which will start the OS.  So when people say they are flashing their
ROM, they are actually reprogramming the eeprom and this would be
somewhat similar to setting up grub or upgrading your bios on the pc.
Am i right so far?

Ok, let say there is a bootloader and it was successful in starting a
linux kernel.  The kernel would then load its device drivers as it was
instructed when compiled.  I believe the hardware found on a HTC is
quite different from that which is found on PCs and linux on PDAs
being more rare than linux on a PC, it is likely that the support for
these devices will be small.  I expect a lot of experimental stuff
lying around in alpha, some beta, but probably very little stable
stuff, am i correct?

But from the point where the kernel is started, the rest works exactly
like on the PC, right?  Except for the devices being different of
course...

Is there a way i can find out exactly what hardware is inside (like an
equivalent of lspci, lsusb) but without playing with the bootloader
yet? (specs on internet arent clear about it, it gives an idea but no
more precise than that).

Oh btw, a bit about myself:  I was subscribed to the OM community list
some time ago, when the neo wasnt out yet.  I really was about to buy
a neo one when the delays to get the first few out helped make my
decision... i bought an eeepc instead! i have no idea if it was the
best choice and it doesnt really matter, i love my eeepc and now i
would like to enjoy openmoko on my pda!  =)   Also, i'm a c/c++
programmer, also very good in php,js,css.  And i love to build my own
tools, tweak my OS and windowmanager (i use fvwm2, i stay away from
kde/gnome/etc).

Thanks!
  Simon