Slashdot Mirror

I have a Sharp Zaurus sl-5500 running the OpenZaurus firmware and the only real issue I have is finding sync software. When I first got the PDA I installed Multi-Sync and had no problems syncing with Ximian Evolution. However, it seems Multi-sync has disappeared.

As for syncing to Windows/Outlook(TM) I believe the Qtopia desktop software will sync with the OpenZaurus firmware. You should be able to easily find the hardware on eBay...

That's a troll question, but I'll answer it anyway. Asking Slashdot what the benefits of free software are, give me a break.

There are benefits to automotive free software regardless of kill switches. If the kill switch was not required by law, you would be able to tell you had one and remove it. As things are, you might have one and not know. If the switch were required by law, you could still remove it if you were willing to pay the price. Every government vehicle would be modified this way. In any case, the car's software could be improved and modified by people who love their car. It happens already but it would be nice to have the vendor's backing. Compare Windoze to Mepis, Rockbox to Iriver or Ipod and OpenZaurus to any other pocket PC to see how those improvements work in real life.

GPE does X and portable Gnome applications. You can use Dilo, which works better than the IE you describe, or mini mozilla, which is slower but resizes images and does other cool stuff. Xstroke gives you full screen graffiti and is the best handwriting recognition I've ever seen. The PIM stuff is supposed to sync with Evolution.

Opie is it's own mini KDE environment and works well. It's supposed to sync with multisynk, but also imports the normal kontact files with ease. Embedded Konqueror is not as good as minimo, but it works well enough. The interface is mature, stable and good.

The built in MMC slot is well used by both, and you can run both at the same time on Zaurus.

Cheers, you don't have to wait for Apple to give you a PDA.

I bought an SL-C3100 (one of the newest models, released in October).. it's bloody brilliant. Combine it with OpenZaurus.. and it really shines. The Sharp firmware sucks balls though.

Graffiti like handwriting recognition comes and goes on OpenZaurus. Rosetta and Xstroke have done the same. Why it goes away, I don't know, but when it's there it's about as good as Palm's ever was and WAY better than any M$ device ever dreamed of being. You should be able to apt-get it if it's available for use.

It's supposed to work with ssh. If that's true, you should be able to drag and drop your files from any computer using Konqueror.

I've done similar with a Zaurus running OpenZaurus. Using GPE, you can even run stuff via X forwarding, which is kind of fun, but silly if you are really intersted in a laptop replacement that fits into your pocket.

Yes, having a CF and MMC/SD slot on the Zaurus was nice. I put in a 512MB SD and used the CF for wifi. The SD worked as a /usr and extra home space. This device has the wifi built in and you will be able to do the same thing with the compact SD as you can with an SD.

The world of Linux handhelds has been sweet for a while now, but things are getting much nicer all the time. It does not take much to run Debian as this wacko from my LUG demonstrates. If a 150 MHz P1 with 70MB of RAM can do it, handheld devices are not far off. 128 MB of RAM should be more than enough, if only they had a 4Gig hard drive on it for OS storage, you could run a full distro. Such machines are on the way and they will be running Debian or some other version of free software.

Don't tell that to my zaurus.

I got one of these a month ago from http://www.geeks.com from $140. I wanted wireless access so I also bought a Sandisk 802.11b + 128meg CF card because it was so cheap. Since I researched ahead of time I knew that sharp has basically stopped supporting these things or providing update so my new cheap wifi card was only going to work if I replaced Sharp's software with OpenZaurus. OpenZaurus is a little ruff around the edges. If you've messed with Gentoo or ever done a Roll Your Own Distro then OpenZaurus should be a walk in the park but it's not for average Joe consumer.

I was happy to find that the OpenZaurus email app has support for IMAPS and SMTPS w/AUTH. I've about given up reading/writing word, excel, and powerpoint files because even though the Original Sharp ROMs have application to do this you can't really get them to work under OpenZaurus. But how much spreadsheet work would you do on a 320x240 device? OpenZaurus does have lots of software, it's got ipkg which you can think of as a mini-clone of apt-get or yum.

As other have said, battery life could be better(especially with the wifi card). But other then that it's cool that there are SD and CF slots. SDIO is not supported but I've got a 1gig SD card working fine. Other have complained about having to use headphones for sound, personally I don't have a problems with that.

Favorite thing done with my Zaurus so far; Walking around every corner of my apartment and scanning all the wireless networks so see what the best channel would be for my network. I've also managed to cut down alot on post-it notes.

And don't forget http://slashdot.org/palm

you can. http://www.openzaurus.org/wordpress/

Best & most flexible way (I do this):

Get an ipaq or a Dell Axim or a sharp zaurus PDA with a cf expansion slot (if needed)

Install Familiar Linux or Openzaurus

Get a Holux GM-270 GPS Card (or anotherone here or here)

Install gpsdrive & enjoy

This way, no worrying about firmware incompatibilities, & if u buy an old ipaq h3600 from ebay your TCO can be less than $200

Indeed, sticking with the PDA is my choice as well. But, one thing you could try is the GPE project http://gpe.handhelds.org/ which makes a wonderful set of applications including PIM, calendar, to-do lists etc and runs on top of either familiar Linux http://familiar.handhelds.org/ which works on Ipaqs and many other devices or openzaurus http://www.openzaurus.org/ which is, again, Linux-based and works for the popular Sharp Zaurus PDAs. Depending on how much you've spent on your PDA, you may be able to run a 2.6 series kernel or a 2.4 series for devices with less power like my Sharp Zaurus 5500. As a bonus, all GPE apps run natively on x86 Linux so you can run them on your desktop machine too.

IR Keyboards will work with lots of models. One guy has even written an entire book on a Sharp Zaurus.

I'm not sure what that means, but Open Zaurus has more software than you can shake a stick at. About three weeks ago, they released 3.5.3, the second release using Bit Bake. Even GPE works well now, though Opie is better developed.

if you are thinking about the wonderful linux stability and versitility, you may have to think again.

Some of the commercial software that comes with Zaurus may not be the best. As a Debian user, crashes are a shock. OZ, when things are working, does much better. I can say for sure that 3.5.3 is working. If your choice of three platforms, the ability to compile your own applications, multiple input and output and linux fs and mount flexibility is not good enough for you, I'd like to know what you consider better. Do you know of any other PDA you can ssh into and export X sessions?

The company offering these is obviously a solution provider. They have picked a good tool for the job.

Sure, nothing works for everone. The "average user" may not need this but that's because they don't need a PDA. The average corporate drone and my wife are happy with Palm. That and the utter uslessness of Winblows based PDAs are why PDA sales are down in the dirt. Those who lug around an eight pound laptop simply to text message, web browse, email, text edit and spreedsheet, would do well with one of these.

Tiny 300-gram Qtopia Linux-based PDAs with 4GB HDD, 416MHz CPU, 65K-colour 640x480 screen, mini QWERTY keyboard, CF/SD/USB/IrDA and what-else are commonplace in Japan but you can buy them for 800 Euro in North America and Europe if you click here or here or here, and their interface is even translated in English. If you feel like installing your own Linux distribution on this PDA, click here. But you can also install OpenBSD on it, as you can see if you click here.

OpenZaurus just released version 3.5.3. I'm running it on my SL-6000L and I'm quite happy with it. Compared to the original ROM, it's a heaven of flexibility.

You should get a Zaurus. http://openzaurus.org

What about even smaller violators, that aren't even corporations?

I'm thinking about OpenZaurus here. 3 years ago they were notified by the FSF that they were violating the GPL (by distributing modified Linux as binary-only packages), and they still do it today.

(Note: OpenZaurus has often released patches which could theoretically be used to reproduce the source code, but that isn't enough to comply with the GPL. You are required to provide the full source code alongside any binaries)

It's not evident that you actually know what the OpenZaurus ROM is that the parent was referring to. See here.

Any Zaurus owners who haven't checked out the alternative Zaurus distributions available should do so. They are much better than Sharp's ROM. Owners of the C-series Zaurii (c760, c860, etc) should check out pdaXrom and everyone else should look at OpenZaurus.

Before I get out my PowerBook, I whip out the Zaurus to see what WiFi networks are available, open, and operational.

The Zaurus can go all the way, and actually connect to the network and use a WWW browser to connect to sites. So, you can verify that everything is fully operational, available, and open.

If I just want to check something quick on a www site, I might not even need to get my laptop out. I certainly wouldn't want to be writing many emails from the tiny Zaurus keyboard. But, for some quick checks it's great.

Also -- A new version of OpenZaurus was recently released. It includes updated Opie apps, and improves on the WiFi capabilities of the old Sharp firmwares.

Forget palm, get a Zaurus and have it your way.

No silly application-file ownership, no proprieratory OSes (can run an opensource linux, including OpenZaurus, Gentoo, and probably others. I particularly like the Gentoo build, as I can use distcc with my home machine to do the actual builds for my zaurus all over WLAN. Then sit back and reap the rewards of hundreds of precompiled packages and thousands more that you can build yourself using the ARM toolchain.

I don't know about you, but these things when compared to a tunsten just seem a whole lot sexier to me.

Only if you are running familiar or OpenZaurus. GPE has excellent handwriting recognition. KPIM works almost exactly like Palm datebook +. Then you also have browsers, wifi, media players and other not considered "palm" programs.

I'm still using a Handspring Visor to organize my life, but I can see great advantages to newer platforms. With a little work, I'll master syncing with the Zaurus. If I do that and can find as good a calculator as the Visor has, that's it for the visor.

There's no way I'll find what I'm looking for in a Pocket PC running Microsoft crap. The last time I looked, those keyboardless things without decent hadwriting were a huge pain in the ass to use.

The Sharp Zaurus is being discontinued in the USA while in Japan they are coming out with a new model.

You can pick up a Sharp Zaurus 5500 from ebay for under $200.

I've had mine now for almost a year with hardly any complaints.
I never really used the original Sharp OS on it because of its limited capabilities, but OpenZaurus is a great alternative.

Its functionality as a PIM really sucks but its available packages is really extensive
Its really no biggie to install OZ and can be ran directly from an optional SD card to save space on your internal RAM (16MB I believe.) Plus it has a CF slot available for your favorite card (wireless, ethernet, gps, IDE, etc) and the serial at the bottom for rs-232 compliant devices.

It really has saved me time and trouble at work using a wi-fi cf card, vnc client or rdesktop (user machines or server), konqueror, and a sd storage disk to hold everything (including my mp3s.)

It kills my battery ( 1-3 hours continous,) but if I just plug it in while I'm at my desk I have no issues at all.

The Sharp Zaurus is being discontinued in the USA while in Japan they are coming out with a new model.

You can pick up a Sharp Zaurus 5500 from ebay for under $200.

I've had mine now for almost a year with hardly any complaints.
I never really used the original Sharp OS on it because of its limited capabilities, but OpenZaurus is a great alternative.

Its functionality as a PIM really sucks but its available packages is really extensive
Its really no biggie to install OZ and can be ran directly from an optional SD card to save space on your internal RAM (16MB I believe.) Plus it has a CF slot available for your favorite card (wireless, ethernet, gps, IDE, etc) and the serial at the bottom for rs-232 compliant devices.

It really has saved me time and trouble at work using a wi-fi cf card, vnc client or rdesktop (user machines or server), konqueror, and a sd storage disk to hold everything (including my mp3s.)

It kills my battery ( 1-3 hours continous,) but if I just plug it in while I'm at my desk I have no issues at all.

and same for the second. They are all org not .com

corrected URLs:
http://www.openzaurus.org
http://www.pdaxrom.org

If it already runs under Linux, it might not be too hard for them to port it to a Zaurus. However, with Sharp's limited distribution in the US and Europe, I doubt they'd even try. It's too bad because I be the same app could run without recompiling on OpenZaurus or even an iPAQ running Familiar.

Of course, this isn't the only handheld option. The TomTom folks also have PDA editions for more popular devices.

[ tons of tips and ideas what's possible with a Z follow ]

The 5500 and others are more like little Linux laptops then PDAs. While I am far from a typical PDA user, the absolutely INCREDIBLE stuff I can do with just a 5500 and a wireless card continues to astound me today. To be fair, I never bought a Zaurus with the intention of ever doing typical PDA like stuff, but just wanted an easy familiar environment to hack in.

Years ago I had a USR P1000 (The Palm 1000, before Palm bought it from US Robotics), and while it was a great PDA (for the day), it was underpowered for what I wanted and most importantly LACKED A KEYBOARD, which makes all the difference in the world. One day I worked an ENTIRE day with only my P1000, a ssh client and a (9600 baud) serial link to my cell phone to see just how doable it was. As a unix admin doing security work the P1000 did have SOME uses (serial console to Sun boxes, ssh client for accessing mail via Mutt, etc) but the end result was a less than productive day overall. Trying to edit files on unix boxes with vi using Graffiti was quite painful and I vowed I'd never buy another PDA until it had at least a minimal keyboard to work with.

Fast forward to my (now several years old) 5500. Shortly after getting it I wiped the original Sharp rom and replace it with the actively developed OpenZaurus distribution, and was very happy with the results.

I have a very portable linux box with wireless, nearly all the software I was using on Solaris and Linux, as well as the pretty Qtopia apps and a half-way decent environment. I've been able to get nice tools like nmap, p0f (Passive OS Fingerprinter), Kismet, and other excellent unix based tools working with minimal effort on the Z under OpenZaurus (and the a lesser extent the Sharp ROM). Under OZ I can compile and run MANY common exploit tools like the awesome Metasploit framework, which require perl, and to a less extent Python. Both are no big deal to get going on the Z, especially since the Z is binary compatible with the IPAQ based Familiar distribution, and usually just needs the odd library to get an app working. That's all fine for text based apps, but since OZ (using Opie, at least) is QT and not X based, a variety of GUI based apps don't easily run. There ARE solutions to getting X based apps to run with minimal fuss, including the original x11zaurus package, and more recently the excellent X/QT package, as well as simply running one of the versions of the vncserver for Zaurus which of course allows you to display X not only on your Z, but also on any other VNC compatible device (such such as you cell phone, Linux, Windows, etc).

More recently the GPE environment and projects has become available, and is offers an attractive alternative to Opie, but with X11 compatibility built in.

For me, I joined the Debian religion ~5-6 years ago after experimenting to see what all the fuss on /. was all about. It didn't take long before I was the typical Debian crack addict apt-getting any application I wanted to check out on a whim. After living in Ottawa for years I was very well aware of the Corel (and later Rebel.com (who themselves were called Hardware Canada previously, and were a unix reseller) Netwinder , which was a cool little ARM based PC, which unfortunately suffered under the idiocy of Corel's managem

I was up till recently a SL-5500 owner. It was a great PDA. However Sharp's software support was terrible. They had great hardware with great function but poor software support.

The OSS community took-up the slack the best they could by releasing revised ROMs and even roms built from the ground up like Open Zaurus.

Another issue I had was lake of sync support. The sync feature was flaky at best.

So I really think it's a bad move on sharp's part to discontinue US sales. The zaurus is one of those devices that almost was and still can be the killer device.

On a side note. The Zaurus is the best handheld I have ever used for WiFi site surveys!

According to the OpenZaurus page their new 3.5.1 release works with your PDA:

"Supported devices for this release are all available Sharp Linux Zaurus models except the SL-A300 and the SL-6000."

If I were you, I'd read the release notes before upgrading. There were enough unresolved issues that I'm choosing to wait to upgrade from OZ 3.3.5.

My Zaurus gets used ten times more than my iPAQ. 9 hours battery life, kickass VGA display, reasonable ickle keyboard, SD and CF. Lack of built in BlueTooth and WiFi's disappointing, but with a GB of SD it's not much of a hardship.

Crappy software? I wouldn't know, I've never used Sharp's Zaurus stuff (they have Opera? Since when?). I use pdaXrom, although OpenZaurus looks interesting if they ever port it to mine (SL-C860)

I used a Zaurus SL-5500 with an Ambicom CF WiFi card for a few months before I got bored with it. It worked great with both my Linksys AP and the Airport APs at work. Be sure to load the OpenZaurus OS on it as there is better, more up-to-date software, and handy features like making the display vertical or horizontal.

Actaully, sharp's PDA is Linux powered, the first widely successful Linux PDA made availiable, I believe. I have one, and I use it as an X server so that I can ssh into my FreeBSD box at home and run programs. It has a WiFi card, built in keyboard, and all around is very nice. There is also an alternative Linux distro availiable for it.

That 32MB flash should be usable to boot the machine nearly instantly; no need to suspend/hibernate to save battery life.

I wonder what the Opie and OpenZaurus folks think about the Pepper Pad 2?

Compared to a Zaurus, this is a good upgrade.

Because we want to poke the PocketPC fans a bit more and have them use things like Linux Handhelds, OpenZaurus (and their successor OpenEmbedded instead of that freakin OS with mostly costly apps that few people use. Basically, that's what drove me away from Palm....

Now having DotGNU ported to OpenZaurus/OpenEmbedded would be very purty and with OpenEmbedded, it might even work with Linuxed iPaqs one day.

The Zaurus is a tiny linux box. A powerful, tiny linux box. The first thing you should do when you get a Z is wipe the OS and instead install the excellent OpenZaurus (OZ). OZ is better than the original Linux install in nearly every respect. Don't think of your Z as a PDA, it's more like a tiny laptop. Some of the things I do with mine:

email: I recently compiled Mutt with a IMAP header cache patch. One of the most powerful email clients in the palm of my hand :-)

wireless sniffing: As you know, Kismet rules the land of wireless sniffers. Pop a wireless card in your Z (or get a 6000 :-) and your neighbours will never be safe again :-)

mp3/ogg playing: Using either Opie-Player2 or the excellent tkcplayer. Unfortunatly, I can't use the tkcplayer on the very latest version of OpenZaurus, not because it won't run (because it DOES almost start up when using "runcompat" but then tells me it can't run on this platform-- which it CAN otherwise it wouldn't be able to tell me that :-) TKC are you listening? Remove the check please :-)

Video playing: using a port of the best linux movie player mplayer. I've encoded a bunch of movies down to ~200MB with great results. You can pop a couple of these on a 512MB card for those long flights :-)

Coding: Of course, I've got gcc and perl loaded on the puppy. Hell, without perl I wouldn't be able to run Chaosreader, makes those long hotel stays much more interesting :-)

Exploit testing :-) Since perl and gcc work fine, I really haven't run into any common exploits I can't compile or run properly.

A couple of hints and tricks:

1) If you want to extend your battery life while doing things like mp3 playing or wardriving, grab something like Qoverclock and use it to UNDERCLOCK your Z. Turn down (or off) the display as well. Poke at it a bit and realize you can easily make a shell script to do without the GUI.

2) To maximize your space on root, ram, sd and cf, the single best thing to use is UCLX which works just like UPX. UCLX/UPX are executeable file compressors-- you compress your executable and when you run it it decompresses (to ram) on the fly. The compression it uses is AT LEAST as good as gzip (or better) and the decompression is very fast. When using slower media like SD (or even CF) you'll find that executables will run FASTER compressed then they would uncompressed-- the CPU can decompress much smaller exe faster than the much larger uncompressed exe could be loaded from media and run.

3) When choosing a root/ram disk size for OpenZaurus, it's a good idea to pick a small root with a much larger ram disk. If (when) you need more ram, you can simply make some ramdisk swap files.

4) While you can run gcc right on the Z, it's also nice to us a cross compiler on your (much faster) desktop and then just cp the binary over. If you're too lazy to do cross compiles (or don't want to set up a ton of additional packages like ncurses, etc), you can also just ssh into the IPAQ development cluster and compile your code there. Typically it will run without issue-- sometimes you may want/need to statically link your programs or just grab the libraries from the ipaq and throw 'em on your Z. I haven't found a single thing yet I couldn't get to run.

5) Assuming you grab the required libraries, you can run basically all of the sw in th

KDE's KHTML is already being used in devices with little memory and slower CPUs

Screenshots include Google, Slashdot, and even The Onion.

Whats more is that the it is a fully featured browser (SSL, screen resizing, etc). And it does not require X to run.

Sunny Dubey

KDE's KHTML is already being used in devices with little memory and slower CPUs

Screenshots include Google, Slashdot, and even The Onion.

Whats more is that the it is a fully featured browser (SSL, screen resizing, etc). And it does not require X to run.

Sunny Dubey

KDE's KHTML is already being used in devices with little memory and slower CPUs

Screenshots include Google, Slashdot, and even The Onion.

Whats more is that the it is a fully featured browser (SSL, screen resizing, etc). And it does not require X to run.

Sunny Dubey

Then, install these apps:

• OpieReader (aka QTReader). Reads Palm DOC files, zTXT, Plucker, HTML, plain text (normal or gzipped), and ppms text (I don't know what that is). It's very configurable for your Zaurus's hardware buttons, and Zaurus units have native screen rotation abilities already.
• qpdf2. This is a full PDF viewer that will let you open standard, untranslated PDFs. There is no need for any sort of desktop "conversion" program like you see on some other platforms. It's an awesome program and handles embedded fonts and graphics just like you'd want it to.

The device itself runs on Linux with Trolltech's QT/Embedded, and ships that way from the factory. Although there are not yet any Linux tools to sync with the newest ROM versions (MacOS X tools may exist), there are these workarounds available:

1. You can install a VNC server on the PDA to help you with data entry, and use rsync to back it up. (This is my preferred method.)
2. You can re-flash the unit with any of the numerous custom ROMs out there. Check out OpenZaurus, which is a Free Software fork of the QTopia environment that comes with it. TrollTech's free QTopia Desktop is available for Linux and can sync with that, as can several other tools like KitchenSync. Or, you can check out PDAXROM (formerly Cacko) for a true X11-based environment.

The one requirement of yours that it will fail is price. Depending on the unit, expect to pay at least $600 (some of the higher-end ones go for that much on ebay). But this unit is much more capable than $600 units from Palm, Sony, or HP/whatever. It really does behave similarly to a laptop, given that it runs a *real* OS. A quick scan of the Zaurus Software Index will reveal all sorts of programs, and you can easily compile others (yes, you can run gcc on the Zaurus itself, too). If you look at it in that light, it's good deal.

Just don't buy it if you're looking for an organiser, you'll be bitterly disappointed.

As the proud owner of a now obsolete Handspring Visor and having just purchased a "new" Zaurus 5500 on Ebay, I basically agree.

Everything on a Palm is instant. It may not have every feature you want, and until recently, the screens had pretty poor resolution (Sony is the exception). However, the applications worked well, and had reasonable interfaces so they could be used quickly.

I quickly abandoned the Sharp ROM for the Zaurus in favor of OpenZaurus, but I've certainly had my frustrations with bugs and missing features. Some small things, like the ability for the application buttons to turn on the device (like a Palm), and some larger things, like having it not reboot properly the second time if you haven't suspended in between (though there is an unofficial fix).

Why am I rebooting in the first place? Because of the Zaurus' greatest aspect - it's basically a fully-functional Linux system. As such, one can tweak, test, and otherwise poke around (sometimes needing a reboot if something got messed up or you're testing something). Some Zaurus applications I've found I've had no good free Palm equivalent. Zee Cookbook is a great, if somewhat slow (when editing), way to keep a database of recipes on hand. QTJournal is a great way to take notes that are categorized by date and subject. The ability to run just about any console-based Linux software (even the statistical software R) makes it very useful as a sysadmin tool. With a small, cheap wireless card from Ebay, it is often more convenient than lugging around a laptop.

Some of the things I've wanted to use my Zaurus for before I bought it work, and some don't (yet). I got xmms running and it plays OGG files well (but the included mediaplayer with openzaurus doesn't, and the Sharp ROM's media player has a horrendous interface). I can control the Zaurus remotely via ssh (VERY handy for exploring with a real keyboard) and VNC (with the framebuffer vnc package). However, the latter doesn't offer even basic security (and I haven't gotten iptables to work), so I'm reluctant to use it often, mostly out of principle.

I got the xvnc server running, but the vncviewer client to view it simply will not connect to it, or any other vnc server. I've seen a few other reports of this behavior but no fix, and most people seem to have no problem. This combo is supposed to allow the use of any X11 application on the Zaurus itself, and more importantly for me, remote X applications (so I can control xmms on my music server with a wireless connection - the ultimate remote). If anyone has a suggestion about this, I'd be happy to hear it.

My other problem is mail - mailit (included with OpenZaurus) is simplistic, but more importantly doesn't work for one of my domains (not sure why this is). I can telnet manually to port 110 and execute pop commands fine, but this mail client barks about an unknown response from the server. QTmail doesn't work either - it gives host not found or something like that.

For the price I paid, I get far more functionality than I ever did from a Visor, but the Zaurus definitely has its frustrations. The PIM apps are nothing much to speak of, they function, but are slower than their Palm equivalents (this, again is on OpenZaurus). My greatest desire - the ability to have tree-view tasks, is not implemented on either my Handspring or any version of "todo" on the Zaurus that I've used.

So it's not perfect, but you can still pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I hope that OpenZaurus/OpenEmbedded get their act together soon and release a new version that supports the SL-5600/SL-6000. The current version of OpenZaurus is unstable on my SL-5600 and the Sharp ROM is crap. I am thinking about trying Gentoo for Zaurus.

Are there any other free Zaurus distros out there?

It's a tad on the pricey side though as an SL-5500 can be had for under $200 and the SL-5600 (which has the 400 MHz xscale proc and 64 MB of RAM) is under $400 last time I checked

I'm not aware of any forks that are published in other ways right now

This is a fork of Linux. (And an illegal one, at that). Other PDA developers distribute GPL-compliant forks too.

Bah, this has the exact specifications of a Zaurus SL-5500. And it looks cheaper and clunkier and the keyboard is some snapon crap. And it's $400! You can pick up SL-5500's these days for cheap.

For the record, I do love my Zaurus. The battery life isn't super, but it lasts about a week or so worth of actual use before I need to charge it (unless I'm in a meeting and need to "take notes"...read: play a game). I don't code on it though, but it's highly beneficial to be able to get in and tweak various scripts to do nifty things (like when cards are inserted).

Anyway, if you're going to spend $400, you can probably get a newer model or an iPAQ and load OpenZaurus/OpenEmbedded (yes, it works on non-Zaurus hardware). You'll probably end up wanting that anyway.

I should also mentioned that the Opie (the GUI in OpenZaurus) is quite stable. It is somewhat slower though. It does have some more features and overall I prefer it. There are multiple ROMs available for the Zaurus. Many complaints about the Zaurus seem directed at the Sharp ROM's, and many only apply to the older versions.

Right, there are many more *free* Linux PDAs distributions. At least

OPIE

Familiar

OpenZaurus

PocketWorkstation - based on Debian/GNU Linux

There is a survey of Linux on PDAs at TuxMobil.

Man, you'd think /.'ers could tell the difference betwen a *distribution* and a *desktop environment* Opie is NOT a "distribution" for handhelds, and thus it's NOT comparable to Cacko, Gentoo, or what have you. Opie is JUST a desktop environment; the only thing it's comparable to is QTopia (QT-based), GPE (X11/GTK based), and Pico. Opie is the preferred GUI for the Familiar (iPAQ, familiar.handhelds.org ) and OpenZaurus distributions (openzaurus.org), but it's not a distribution by itself, so please stop treating it as such.

Check out the docs and FAQs on the OpenZaurus website. Also here is a 'Why OpenZaurus' document.

I like OZ better because the PIM apps offer more to me than the normal apps. However, I haven't gotten the Hancom apps or Opera to work yet on OZ.

Check out the docs and FAQs on the OpenZaurus website. Also here is a 'Why OpenZaurus' document.

I like OZ better because the PIM apps offer more to me than the normal apps. However, I haven't gotten the Hancom apps or Opera to work yet on OZ.

Check out the docs and FAQs on the OpenZaurus website. Also here is a 'Why OpenZaurus' document.

I like OZ better because the PIM apps offer more to me than the normal apps. However, I haven't gotten the Hancom apps or Opera to work yet on OZ.