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Zaurus Software Reviews
Steve Emms writes "The Zaurus SL-5500 PDA represents a new frontier. Here Linux is not an afterthought shoehorned onto a windows product - the Zaurus is a PDA that comes configured with Linux out of the box. And it's a good fit, Linux works well on relatively low spec machines like PDAs. But it's the software that makes the machine. So LinuxLinks has started a series of reviews of commercial Linux software for the Zaurus." Little thin right now, but a nice start for anyone interested in the PDA.
Opie player 2 is better in many ways though, because it supports OGG, MP3, MPEG4 (divx), MPEG1, MPEG2, RV10 (early real video codec) (ffpeg's codec) and has a pretty graphical front end.
Some of The Kompany's stuff looks interesting, but their multimedia stuff is just a rip off. (tkcVideo uses ffmpeg as the backend (which is also used by opie player 2 and mplayer, all it provides is a $10 pretty GUI, which opie player 2 does as well now)
Does the Zaurus SL-5500 support a non-GUI (console) mode?
...I must say that I am stunned by the usablility of the thing. I have a basement littered with various handhelds (we use them often on customer projects and usually get one for ourselves for testing) that never get used because, well, they aren't very usefull. Storing contacts, having a calendar, etc. is great, but it's faster and easier on paper. Yes, I can get my e-mail on it, but entering text is a hassle to say the least. The fact is, I (speaking personally here) want to do much more with my handheld than just play "Daytimer" with it. The SL-5500 is just the ticket. My company is teaching "Intro to Linux" classes that target existing MS administrators. For the class we need a server sitting there for them to hit during exercises. I need an MS box (so they can setup and use SMB client connectivity), a web server, FTP server, ssh server and a telnet server (again for use during exercises). I wanted to do something at the end of the class to really wow the students (who are all new to Linux). The answer in my opinion was the 5500. I received it a few days ago, and within 30 minutes of unboxing it had SaMBa, Telnet, ssh, Boa, and FTP serving happily on it and a Linksys CF 802.11b card for connectivity. Threw a 128MB SD card in it for storing the files used during the class and stuck a SaMBa share on it. Works beautifully. Tested the various pertinent "servers" under load (10 concurrent users pulling data - as the class is limited to 10) and it worked like a champ. This is what I have always dreamed of in a handheld...something that lets me do 75%+ of what I do on my desktop (albeit in a more limited but still very useful fashion). I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a PDA. I have seen a few comments about the interface "Trying to look like XP." You obviously HAVE NOT used one. The interface is all it's own. VERY fast to get around, totally customizable. All around fabulous. Later.