Slashdot Mirror
Review of the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500
Gothmolly writes "After reading the story and comments on Slashdot,
I went out and bought one from the Home Shopping Network. It's been a very fun and interesting jump into both the modern PDA (I owned the original Palm until this year) embedded Linux worlds. I've written a review about my experiences over the last few days with it. A lot of this information I found online, a lot is personal experience. HSN is now out of them, but they must still be available cheaply somewhere."
Zaurus 5500 reviews are so 2002. Why, this highly reputable site posted their first review nearly a year ago! I think I'll start reading it instead of Slashdot.
;-)
So long, suckers!
Check it out at www.openzaurus.org! The GUI is much more slick than Sharp's.
But does it run linux?
Whatever you do, don't buy from HSN. They have no return policy, nor do they have a warranty.
I know, I know. I tell myself the same thing every night before going to bed. Yet the very next day I always find myself frantically dailing those numbers when the happy-faced person on the TV warns me that they only have a limited supply left and they're going fast!
I was in the market for a laptop so I could read email, surf, and SSH from anywhere (including when on the shitter). Wanted WiFi as well.
.. about 1/10 of the time it will lock up and you have to hard reset (clears the memory!). Do the following:
.. that would rock.
.. give 'em a couple more years to improve (software, processor speed, battery life) and they will positively ROCK. Hopefully now that more folks are using them there will be more software. I'm personally looking out for an RSS newsreader and a simple outliner (like OmniOutliner on the mac). Also an SFTP graphical client would be cool.
But then the HSN special came up, and DAMN I had to try it out.
It's a very cool device which is perfect for my needs but a little lacking as a general purpose PDA. However it has a LOT of potential.
Hint: don't bother with OpenZaurus unless you like to experiment. It breaks everything. Stick with the stock ROM if you want to use PIM functions. I had problems with Opera, Konqurer, TheKompany's apps, and pretty much anything that didn't come with OZ. Too bad, because the base components of OZ are much better than the stock ROM (for instance it actually shows how much battery you have left as %-age).
I set up wireless, set it up to do backups with rsync+SSH, and to NFS mount my MP3 directory. I have it running through my privoxy proxy, filtering out ads and cookies... Sweeeeeeeeet!
Hint: to set up your WCF12 card (if you have one of those), set up syslog to log somewhere, run syslog, and plug in your card. You'll see the necessary parameters to set up the card in the logs.
Another hint: DON'T EVER REBOOT FROM THE GUI
1) quit Qtopia
2) while it's counting down, hit '/'
3) hit 'a' at the menu to get a console login
4) log in
5) type "telinit 6"
Be sure to back up often anyway, since your stuff is stored in a ramdisk.
Anyway this is LOTS of fun for linux geeks, I haven't had this much fun since I installed OS X (UNIX COMMAND LINE.. ON A MAC??? AND NOW ON A PDA??? *spurt*). In fact I often think to myself.. whoa...what if APPLE made one of these bad boys with Mac OS X and apps that "just work"
Unfortunately it doesn't work with OS X / iSync but you can at least set up USB networking with this driver. Tell Apple you'd like them to support the zaurus, since many Zaurus geeks are probably also OS X geeks!
Anyway, these things are super-fun
I mean, read the review:
-Portable web server
-Wireless networking capable
-SSH
-Able to connect by USB or LAN
This will be a tool at the disposal of every al Qaeda foot soldier and Iraqi intelligence officer.
Sharp must be stopped and sanctioned for this negligence.
My God... think of the children, man!
Good thing I have Homeland Security on speed dial.
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid. --John Wayne