Full X11-Based Distro For PDAs

omin0us writes "over at http://cacko.zaurususergroup.com, we are working on a Full X11 based Linux distro for the Sharp Zaurus SL-c7x0/860 series of PDAs. The screen has a usable full VGA resolution of 640x480 and the distro uses Openbox/ROX Desktop as its Native WM. But others such as Fluxbox, Afterstep, and XFCE have been compiled for it and run nicely. You will also find a WIDE variety of compiled apps in the Feed on the Cacko website such as a native GCC Compiler, XMMS, Mplayer, prboom, Gimp, Gkrellm, Abiword and numerous others. Many different screenshots of it in action may be found here. This is truly bringing desktop linux to the PDA. Also, another project that has branched from Cacko Linux is Gentoo for Zaurus. This project, at the moment is based on the Cacko X11 environment, but will eventually become a full Gentoo environment. "It can emerge packages, sync, or create Gentoo packages using the -B switch in emerge." This should be an interesting project to watch."

Comments

Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[DarkHelmet]

You will also find a WIDE variety of compiled apps in the Feed on the Cacko website such as a native GCC Compiler

Maybe it's me, but I find it downright hilarious that they include a compiler with a PDA. Like that's some kind of huge geek selling point for it.

Geek 1: Yeah, I got Quake running on my PDA. Take that!
Geek 2: That's nothing! I compiled it on my PDA and *then* played it.

All the other geeks gather around Geek #2. One of the geek chicks who was with Geek #1 pulls away from him and goes over to Geek #2.

Yeah... I guess it's that important. Just like that nifty new 64-bit CPU that makes my penis feel bigger than it actually is. Yippie.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[mirko]

Well, there's a complete development environment to be run on the Zaurus itself, and it was before we (cacko.biz) actually created our environment.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Geek 2 install Quake using apt-get? Just checking. You know how horny chicks get when they see the sensual dselect interface.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Ed Avis]

What good reason is there to leave out gcc, if it's simple to make a package of it and there is plenty of disk space?

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

I work at a bank, and own a Zaurus SL-C700. I work full-time in a tech support call center (noon to 11 PM), and am a full-time student. This means when it's late at night, I have plenty of time to work on homework.

For the past two semesters, all of my programming assignments have been written, built, and debugged on the SL-C700. I'd say it takes me perhaps twice as long to type in code, and GCC runs rather slowly. But the hours would otherwise be wasted. I'm not allowed to put Linux or GCC on Bank computers.

Portable GCC is indeed useful.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Anonymous Coward]

uhhh, maybe because its a frickin' PDA and not a desktop machine

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Fr33z0r]

Yeah, and what's the point in dual-booting to Linux, I can do everything in Windows I can do in Linux and more! While we're at it, what's the point in having an mp3 player? I can just listen on my stereo! DVD's, why should I buy them if I can just *imagine things happening*?!?

Personally, I like the idea of being able to do development work on the target system. So what was your post, funny? or flamebait? :D

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[coder101]

At home you could build a live cd version of Linux with the usbnet kernel module. Then at work on a PC that was not being used, you could boot up Linux and be able to telnet to your Zaurus and use vi from your PC if you want. Or use some other editor on the PC and ftp the files to your Zaurus.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[torpor]

if you don't have a compiler on your computer, it is only half a computer.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Sloppy]

Maybe it's me, but I find it downright hilarious that they include a compiler with a PDA.

It's hilarious to you, because you misinterpreted something: you're calling it a PDA. It's a tiny PC, not a PDA. PDAs are tools you use to remember appointments, addresses, etc. PCs are tools you use to get work done, play games, etc. The aim of this project is to treat the Zaurus like a PC instead of a PDA.

And that makes sense, sort of. The Zaurus is hugely overpowered for use as a PDA. Almost anyone who needs a PDA, can get what they need done with an old Palm (the ones with the 68k-like processor, I can't remember the name). The question is: is the Zaurus powerful enough to be a good PC? Apparently, these people think that it is.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he said good reason, yours is nonsense.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Anonymous Coward]

It definitely is fast enough. I ran psilinux on my old psion s5mx, which is a full linux OS, with x11 and fluxbox. Ran pretty good on the 36mhz arm 7100 :) The zaurus's are what, 400mhz?

btw, the old palms use dragonball cpus. dragonball ez,vz, super vz,

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Phillup]

...I can do everything in Windows I can do in Linux...

Yeah, I wasn't very good at Linux for a while either. Keep at it tho, you'll get there.

;-)

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[LinuxHam]

if you don't have a compiler on your computer, it can't compile viruses distributed as source code. Firewalls shouldn't have compilers. Compile everything on another box and ship the binaries. Even the kernel.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[brakk]

Two words: Lap-Top

Seriously though, they might frown upon you bringing a laptop to work too. Someone else mentioned using a linux live CD, but you probably only have one computer while at work and can't afford to be rebooting it between taking calls and programing. One other thing you could consider is installing virtualPC/VMWare and running linux in a window. But, I'm sure you've thought of all this and using your PDA is probably the mose effective way.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[CatOne]

Ever hear of a laptop? WTF? Get yourself an iBook.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have all missed the point here.

Nobody is saying that you should have a gcc compiler on your pda!

Nobody is saying that you *NEED* a gcc compiler on your PDA.

They are just saying, that if you want to, you can have a gcc compiler on your pda!

And many people do want this flexability.

How many pocket PC's/psion's can run a full blown gcc compiler, or apache webserver, or MAME, or gentoo.... if it runs on Linux, it can run on the zaurus. That doesnt mean that you need to run it for everyday use. If you want a little bit more out of you handheld than joe sixpack, then you can do it!. This is a powerfull machine without the extras, the extras are a bonus that other platforms cannot/will not offer.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[dbIII]

Just like that nifty new 64-bit CPU that makes my penis feel bigger

Well, that all depends on what sort of images it puts on the screen.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[fiftyfly]

Ever hear of a laptop? WTF? Get yourself an iBook.

Sure! I'd love one. I can't actually afford to buy one though. I do have a Z 5500, and I bought an irda kb, and the combination works very well for the small amount of 'portable work' I need to do.

Re:Portable Compiler While You're on the Plane.

[torpor]

a firewall isn't a computer. a firewall is a firewall.

computers have compilers on them.

viruses are an -operating system- problem, not a tools problem. if you run windows, you will need to worry, frequently, about viruses. windows cannot any longer be separated into (workstation-only) and (program-code running/developing) categories.

I am the founder of Cacko

[mirko]

Make a whois :)
Glad but surprised to be Slashdotted :)

Interesting project to watch?

[ObviousGuy]

Yeah, watching Gentoo emerge packages on a crappy PXA250 is a whole lot of fun, I'm sure.

Is the Linux desktop really the right metaphor for a palmtop device? Apple knew a desktop was wrong, Microsoft finally figured it out with PPC2002.

When will the good folks working on these Linux ports figure it out?

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[Anonymous Coward]

PXA 255 your highness... Since the SL-C750.
Considering that Linus originaly written Linux on/for a 386 at around 33MHz and 4MBs of RAM I believe the 400MHz PXA CPU and 64MB of RAM is kind of a heaven.

Oh yes. I do own an SL-C750 and I love it!
It's like a small notebook that fits in your pocket.
If you omit the Konsole app no one can tell that it's running Linux, unless he knows about this feature.

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[MS_is_the_best]

Actually, with a keyboard, as this device has, a terminal with all powerful command line tools (bash, ssh, text editor, IS very usable. Ok, being able to use multiple windows (which don't fit together on 640x480) is not very useful, but the mentioned window managers can do a lot more which can be useful to the geek and on a pda (tabs, proper keybindings etc. etc.)

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[yerM)M]

X11 is not the desktop. X11 provides the layer on which the desktop can run. I can prototype my own desktop on my linux box, reconfiguring FVWM or windowmaker to match the PDA metaphor and then run it on the PDA.

Hell, having a remote PDA desktop is a killer app. Forgot your contact information? No problem, just page your pda to get it out of sleep mode, and then ssh a new xclient to it.

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[jarran]

Is the Linux desktop really the right metaphor for a palmtop device?

Probably not, but is that relevant. Do you think people run X on their Palmtop because they think it makes it a better PDA? I rather expect it's because more because Linux has a vast range of other software that they want to run.

I run Linux on my Psion 5MX - means that I can hack on my personal coding projects on long journeys without having to lug a huge laptop around. I couldn't do that with the Psion's native OS as it just doesn't have the tools.

Eventually we will have the best of both worlds - a decent PDA interface running on top of X. But first you have to get the basics working.

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[tunah]

Ok, being able to use multiple windows (which don't fit together on 640x480) is not very useful,

The earliest macs which popularised the windows (and maybe the Windows) we know and love, used a resolution of 512x384 IIRC. (At 1bpp of course).

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[Capt. Beyond]

hmm, Opie has a terminal, tabs and keybindings.
I dont see any real benefit for running X on a pda. Unless you like to waste your flash space

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft finally figured it out with PPC2002

You obviously haven't even looked at something running PPC2002! It took about 15 minutes of playing with a demo at the local discount electronics place to convince me that M$ had no idea what the hell they were doing on a palmtop device! In the end, I decided to stay with my Kyocera Smartphone a while longer. Palm OS running on a 33 Mhz processor is faster and MUCH more responsive than PPC2002 on a 400 Mhz processor. When will the good folks at M$ figure that out?

You also haven't looked much at the Sharp Zaurus line. This model ships with the PXA400 now.

Re:Interesting project to watch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Again you have missed the point totally!

You do not have to do this! You do not NEED to do this, but with the zaurus, you now *can* do this on a device that is not much bigger that a packet of fags.

If you never intend to use the device to it's fullest, say you just want a PDA, then it will be a PDA, just like any other PDA. But if you want to go a little further, no other PDA will allow you to do what A zaurus will.

Tux

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hello Sir, I will be your personal digital assistant today!"

Well... maybe

[OctaneZ]

"This should be an interesting project to watch."

Well, yes, everything but the three-week bootstrap!

Damn,,

[vpscolo]

after seeing those screenhosts my first 2 geek reactions are

1) Must by gadget to run Linux on
2) Must get a copy of Lemming and run on GnuBoy

Damn you slashdot for spending my money and filling my time.

Rus

Re:Damn,,

[Anonymous Coward]

after seeing those screenhosts my first 2 geek reactions are 1) Must by gadget to run Linux on 2) Must get a copy of Lemming and run on GnuBoy

3) Install apt-get and convert PDA to mobile moon mission control console

Re:Damn,,

[ocie]

There is a copy of lemmings for Palm available from ardiri.com. I have no connection to them except that I have wasted, I mean enjoyed many hours of playing this game.

metamod as unfair the abusing bastich !

[mirko]

How can it be "redundant" if I funded the project and booked the cacko.biz domain name for Sash, our lead developer, and purveyed the Tomsk lab with hardware and logistics support ?

Has somebody done it before me ?

Re:metamod as unfair the abusing bastich !

[mirko]

Happily, the story submitter gave our website mirror address, so they won't Slashdot the original website...
Neither the main company's site.

Re:metamod as unfair the abusing bastich !

[Anonymous Coward]

The article did not specifically mention that the project has a founder, but I guess that most people guessed it :)

Re:metamod as unfair the abusing bastich !

[axxackall]

When you come to slashdot be ready to be covered by a shit from 12-years-old slashdot typical moderators.

That's the way Slashdot is designed: to mimic a freedom of speech through the chaos of moderations.

Re:metamod as unfair the abusing bastich !

[mirko]

Exactly, this is the reason why I actually bullshit them, it doesn't bring anything more valuable but it maintains the level of mediocrity they apparently promote.

Openbox ROX !

[maharg]

Mmmm. Definitely the right combination, although on my desktops I prefer to just have rox-filer running rather than the rox desktop. It's great when the n00bs ask where the start menu is ,-}
There are a couple of openbox/rox-filer desktop screenshots on my site if anyone cares to look - url above.

I gotta get me one of those zaurus thingees..

SLASHDOTTED!!!!

[armando_wall]

When will you guys at ZaurusUserGroup learn that you can't post a link to Slashdot of a page hosted in one of your wireless PDAs?? XD

Oh, well........

Below is an excerpt of the site... and this is google cache of the screenshots. ---

Welcome

We believe we're living in a modern open World where only sharing the cutting-edge technologies we develop may make our lives better. This is the reason why we chose the Open Source model, the GNU General Public License in peculiar.

Cacko Linux is our new ARM Linux distribution. Aimed at PDA, Cacko Linux uses X11 instead of Qtopia, hence greater versatility, improved portability and better performance which make your PDA a subnotebook in terms of functionalities.

This distribution integrates its own development kit so that it becomes virtually possible to recompile any graphical program to extend your PDAs possibilities to your own needs.

Cacko Linux has been tested on Sharp Zaurus SL-C700/750/760/860 but is currently being ported to other architectures.

Noone's said it yet..

[chendo]

Disclaimer: I'm a happy Gentoo user myself ;p

Wonder how long it takes to compile X on a PDA ;)

Although it would work fine with an existing distcc cluster. Now, imagine a beowulf cluster of PDAs compiling Gentoo!

Re:Noone's said it yet..

[JoScherl]

You don't need to compile X on your PDA, you compile it onyour Desktop machine with a cross-compiler (p.e. using distcc - while the PDA controls only, but doesn't compile) and then install it on the PDA.

Opie should be mentioned

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's a different project, but people who find cacko interesting might find opie interesting as well.

http://opie.handhelds.org/

Re:Opie should be mentioned

[Schreckgestalt]

I have had OPIE (screenshots) running on my iPAQ, and while it looks nice, IMHO it's less UN*Xish than GPE (screenshots).

IMHO, OPIE tries to be like PocketPC (the native Windows OS on these devices), while GPE rather tries to bring the GNU-experience to handhelds.

Re:Opie should be mentioned

[wehe]

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.

Integrated WiFi

[AsnFkr]

If it had WiFi built in I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I know I can add it, but at the cost of one memory slot. Thats a heafty price to pay. Very cool stuff though.

Re:Integrated WiFi

[robson]

The recently released specs for the new 6000 series will include an option for built-in wifi, both Bluetooth and 802.11.

What packaging system?

[Debian Troll's Best]

There is a very important point which is glossed over in the article...what type of packaging system will be used in the Zaurus X11 distro? Yes I know that it's based on Gentoo and you can emerge software, but it's not a true package management system, like, say, apt-get.

emerge apt-get!

Re:What packaging system?

[Anonymous Coward]

this is omin0us who submitted the article, i don't have a login yet, but i'll answer the question. We just use "ipkg install". This is pretty standard for most of the linux based PDA's. There is an ipkg.conf file which directs it to a URL of the feed, and it will download the package, and all dependencies for that packaged. Its actually very very similar to debians package management. Even down to how the ipks are structured. As for Gentoo for Zaurus, i don't know exactly, as they are a different project just roughly based off of ours. But we all post at the same dev boards.

Cacko?

[Chuck Chunder]

The site isn't responding so I haven't seen anything explaining the derivation of the name but it seems like an odd choice

If it had a hard drive...

[bcg]

Wouldn't a 4Gb hard disk just like whats in the mini ipod go down a treat in one of these things?

Combine that with wifi (as mentioned by another poster) and at least laptop battery life expectancy and i would instantly order one.

I don't ask much :)

Re:If it had a hard drive...

[Anonymous Coward]

or you could just buy a small Laptop right now

Re:If it had a hard drive...

[way2trivial]

go look at a fujitsu p1100
http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/ buildseriesbean.do?series=P1

LifeBook P1120
FPCM20101 for $1199
9 hours possible on one battery

800 MHz Crusoe(TM) TM5800 processor with LongRun(TM) Power Management
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition
8.9" wide-format XGA TFT with touch screen
256 MB memory
30 GB hard drive
External USB 3.5" floppy drive
Built-in multinational4 56K5 V.90 modem
Integrated 802.11b wireless LAN
Built-in 10/100 Ethernet
Quick Point pointing device and stylus
One-year International Limited Warranty
M-Code FPCM20101

Why not KDE?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is wrong with KDE? I have used KDE in 640x480 and it can fit quite well in it. KDE has been designed to scale quite well across a variety of machines, and 640x480 is plenty for it.

Re:Why not KDE?

[DrJay]

Well, i'd give you a RTFA, but it seems that the webserver wouldn't let you anyway. Their screenshot collection did show KDE, but with the comment that it ran very slowly. No huge surprise - KDE is very full featured for a PDA.

JT

Re:Why not KDE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because some people don't like KDE, which is their right, and you won't force them to port it if they don't want to.

Besides, you've got all sorts of KDE apps (Konqueror and all) that already run beautifully on Opie, so why would it be bad that people help non-KDE apps catch-up?

Re:Why not KDE?

[iantri]

Heh. The dock/taskbar/whatever the hell it's called takes up at least 50 pixels of screen real estate in it's default configuration, the Keramik title bars take up another 30 each.. that doesn't leave a lot for the apps.

There goes that Idea.

[bmsleight]

Great, been deciding all week the Best Price to buy a Zaurus or even import one to the UK, now that pound has a good rate against the YEN and Dollar.

Typical every geek in the UK will now be ordering one and VAT man will be getting his share, once the volumes of direct imports go up.

Coming soon to /.

[m00nun1t]

Updates on the only items that HAVEN'T run linux so far:

- Porting linux to a kitchen blender
- Porting linux to a carrot
- Porting linux to the wart on my grandmothers knee

Re:Coming soon to /.

[David Gerard]

I always thought the canonical Linux porting hack would be to a coffee cup.

Re:Coming soon to /.

[javatips]

That's funny, but wait until some geek gets his habd on the LG Internet refrigerator.... He sure will port linux on it!

Re:Coming soon to /.

[trippinonbsd]

Updates on the only items that HAVEN'T run linux so far:

- Porting linux to a kitchen blender
- Porting linux to a carrot
- Porting linux to the wart on my grandmothers knee

Those platforms are all supported by netbsd!

Re:Coming soon to /.

[VisorGuy]

- Porting linux to a carrot

Porting Linux to carrots makes sense since they come in clusters!

It used to be a joke...

[alispguru]

I remember someone's old sig line:

I run X windows on my wristwatch.

Re:It used to be a joke...

[axxackall]

Time changes. Now that sig is:

I run GNOME on my wristwatch.

Oh, wait, I've already seen this somewhere:

I run Ximian Office on my wristwatch.

Re:heh

[acidtripp101]

I'm sorry, but I swear that if I see another one of these 'Their server must be running on *Insert device in article here*' trolls, I'm going to shoot somebody.

It's not funny, nobody cares.

plural

[CaptainBaz]

I think you mean "Sharp Zaurii"... ;)

Link to ROX

[Anonymous Coward]

Would have been nice to include a link to the ROX Desktop...

zaurus-debian

[damohasi]

One should mention that there exists a project for porting debian to zaurus already:

http://pocketworkstation.org/

Development seems to have stopped in August 2003 but maybe its worth a try - it even claims to enable running evolution just by apt-getting it...

Re:zaurus-debian

[Anonymous Coward]

http://zaurus.spy.org/screenshots/scottyelich/

Yes, it works... that's qtopia on the left, and zdebian on the right ... both accessed via vnc from a freebsd (at that time, 5.1) box. One of the screenshots at the right also shows vnc inside of the zdebian accessing the qtopia (outside) of the zdebian.

Yes, I used apt-get... it was nice.

I believe cacko x11 is going to be better -- especially with gentoo and/or compat with familiar (ipkg find).

c700/c760/5600 ... love'm.

Re:zaurus-debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Scott, nice to see ya, and some good feedback on this article. i remember seeing that screenshot a while back. talk to ya on IRC.
omin0us

Re:zaurus-debian

[terzyva]

The reason for the lack of progress on pocketworkstation.org has been the usual total lack of time, but I'm still running it on my SL-C750, and have a couple of things on the back burner.

I'm planning to get an updated release together; this had been complicated a bit by some changes to the Debian "testing" archive which had doubled the size of the base distribution.

On the whole, a motivational problem had been that it works for me, with new software installable using apt-get, so there wasn't any pressing technical need to work on the distribution.

To be fair, Evolution crashed on loading and apparently doesn't have an ARM image in the Debian archive currently. But KDE works well, including Konqueror. It takes a fairly long time to launch (a couple of minutes) but is surprisingly usable once running.

-Klaus

Mirror!

[FiberOpPraise]

Enjoy! http://colo.fibersnet.net/x11/cacko.zaurususergrou p.com/screenshots.php?menuid=2

Opie != PocketPC

[ofels]

We are in no way trying to imitate PocketPC.
In fact we concentrate on usability and ease of use which Microsoft does not.

The only thing similar is that we also use a colorful and comprehensive display and similar applications (today, addressbook, calendar, etc.) but besides this the whole concept is different.

Oliver
team Opie

I went with a Handera 330 instead

[Dr. Manhattan]

I got some cash for xmas, and tried to decide what to get to replace my Palm IIIxe. I know someone with a Zaurus SL-5000 (the original developer model, 32MB RAM) and was seriously tempted to find a real Zaurus off eBay. There were just a couple of problems.

The first is the battery life. I could go weeks on two AAA batteries in the IIIxe, while all these multi-hundred MHz machines have battery lives measured in hours. On an international flight, or when vacationing on the side of a mountain in rural Italy, that makes a difference.

The second is simple efficiency. On the Palm, apps execute in place; there's no need to copy from "storage" to "executable RAM" or anything like that. This frees up a remarkable amount of memory in practice. Linux's support for XIP is still highly experimental, though it seems some progress is being made.

The other part of efficiency is the apps. The Palm apps are really well-designed, and really work for a small-screen, stylus device. A lot of Linux apps don't translate so well to a dinky screen and pen-based operation, and even the specific PIM apps have some rough spots (though I admit I haven't seen the very latest environments).

I finally decided I didn't really need to run a webserver off my PDA (however much I wanted to, yeah I'm a geek), or Quake. I got a Handera 330 off eBay (not easy, some guy had bought the last 11 of them; wtf?). CF and SD slots, 240x320 screen (but grayscale, so battery life doesn't suffer), built-in voice recorder, etc.

Re:I went with a Handera 330 instead

[eli173]

I bought a Handera 330 and loved it... as a PDA.
However, once I had gotten to the point of fully using its PDA capabilities, I started wanting to add some simple things to it... but the only time I had that I could work on those things was when I only had my PDA available. (No PC or notebook on hand.)
So I wanted something I could use python and pyqt on. Well, the Zaurus will do that, and do it pretty well.

So once you out-grow your HE330, look at the Z again. :)

Re:I went with a Handera 330 instead

[Dr. Manhattan]

So I wanted something I could use python and pyqt on.... So once you out-grow your HE330, look at the Z again.

What about Palm Python? Okay, limited, no QT, I know.

For my programming needs, the H330 is plenty. There's OnboardC, LispMe, and Dragon Forth. This lets me do the kind of programming I like to do. I recognize that this doesn't fit everyone's needs, but I don't think I'll outgrow my H330 for quite a while. :->

Re:I went with a Handera 330 instead

[eli173]

What about Palm Python? Okay, limited, no QT, I know.

At the time, all I could find for python was Pippy... and that was just painful. Particularly if I wanted to do anything with a GUI.

It "just works"

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using the cacko X11 Rom within a few days of its appearance and it works great - so well that I donated shortly after. In fact, it (by no small measure) works better than the original sharp ROM. If you own one of the newer zaurus models and haven't tried it, i strongly encourage you to do so. The install is painless, and you get a fully functional linux desktop in your pocket.

That's one giant leap backwards...

[dublin]

X is all wrong for devices like this. Qtopia, on the other hand, which is what Sharp was smart enoug to put in them to start with, is a very good fit. This is simply a hacking tour-de-force. Sure, you can do it, and run X on an X-scale PDA, but it's *stupid* to do so. Especially since Qtopia lets you port Qt applications with minimal fuss. I suppose this gives the rabid QT haters somethign to do with their spare time, though, so it's not all bad...

Re:That's one giant leap backwards...

[torpor]

Rubbish. X is just fine on a platform like this, if you do it properly. Not to mention, with this box running X, I can access countless fleets of Unix machines which are quite happily configured to allow my X session to work.

"Qtopia", being new and exciting, is of course a nice lib to namedrop, but in fact 'porting Qt applications' isn't necessarily a factor when you've already got a standard, open, fully working window system implemented. you can port anything to X.

X works. and ... its not as bad as those who haven't worked with it recently would make it out to be ...

Re:That's one giant leap backwards...

[jayteedee]

X isn't wrong for this device. It's wrong for you maybe, but definately not the device. I don't own a PDA type device because they don't do enough yet and I'm waiting for the next generation. The next generation device will basically be a full fledge computer the size of a PDA. I'll have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor wearever I go, and I'll just plug in my "PDA" wherever I am, and poof, I'll have all my stuff with me. Think PDA merged with 40GB iPod for storage. I'd only use the PDA functions to access document's that I already have. I don't need/want to create new documents on the PDA, I mostly need a reference device and calandar, phone book, etc. This would be a fabulous device, and if Linux can own the space before Windows walks in, all the better.

Re:That's one giant leap backwards...

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

I agree with the parent. I've used an earlier version of this ROM on my SL-C700. I guarantee X is indeed right at home on this device. It's lighter and faster.

On the Embedded Konsole app for Qtopia, when the screen is full of text (79x29) and I press enter, it takes anywhere between a half second and a full second to scroll the text down one line. ls -alR goes in skips and starts, giving you a good chance to read one particular screen and then skipping many pages ahead on the next refresh.

On the Cacko X11 ROM, using whatever console that uses, the screen scrolls almost instantly. ls -alR looks like it does on a desktop computer -- not only is text flying by so fast you can't read it, you can visibly see screen updates happening so fast, text really is "flying by".

(To be fair, my Qtopia install supports Japanese text, needed for my Japanese language class. That makes fonts *much* bigger, memory-footprint-wise.) ...and all of this on a device that's always in my pocket. If it was a laptop I'd be leaving it home 80% of the time I'd end up needing it.

Re:That's one giant leap backwards...

[Anonymous Coward]

Embedded Konsole is not very representative.
Qt framebuffer is generally faster and certainly lighter - there is no need for a separate process.
Another issue with X is that , for all that portability claims, hardly any standard X apps are usable on a device like the Zaurus.

Re:That's one giant leap backwards...

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

Hmm...good point, I didn't really realize it when I posted that, but the partial information I gave puts Qtopia in a worse light than it deserves.

I'm going to bow out of arguing one perspective or the other, and just offer my observations.

For comparison, on the default Sharp-provided Qtopia ROM (C700 with 32 MB RAM, 48 MB swap):

The text editor scrolls a full screen of text in what feels like a fifth of a second. Much faster.
The Netfront web browser, showing the default http://www.zaurusworld.ne.jp page, scrolls up and down very quickly (visible tearing, but many more frames per second than I can count). The Slashdot homepage, however, takes one to two seconds to scroll and update the screen, after the page has finished loading. > 2 MB of RAM free, no swapfile activity while it's scrolling.

By contrast, the Cacko X11 ROM hasn't shown me any slow scrolling/updating problems except under high CPU usage. DOOM on the Cacko ROM runs at a pretty high frame rate, more like a fast 486 way back in the day -- and the window drags across the screen pretty well (more than 10 updates/sec). I end up with a lot more free RAM running X11, even giving Qtopia the benefit of unloaded plugins (rename then reboot) and no fastload. The text editor has a lot more features than Qtopia's, but it scrolls smoothly. If I drag quickly from the top to the bottom of a large text file, I can see nearly all of the text scroll by.

Right now it seems the X11 ROM is appropriate if you want to turn your PDA into a cramped toy Linux box, with much tinkering required. PDA-like operations take *much* more user interface effort to accomplish. (For example, while you can middle click or right click, you do it by pressing Fn + a number to switch click modes. Fn + 1 for left click, Fn + 2 for middle click, Fn + 3 for right click. If you need to take a quick note you need to find and open a text editor, write the document, and save it.)

Abiword was very usable on the C700. Hancom Word on Qtopia is nice -- simple, PDA-centric interface with just the bare minimum features. Abiword on X11 ROCKS though. It's like MS Word 97 in my pocket, sans paperclip. (typo underlining and all)

My first PDA was an Agenda VR3, which also runs Linux and X. Qtopia won't even run on this platform. I'd like to see the Cacko X11 ROM adopt some of those PDA programs -- they were simple but usable. They weren't really appropriate for complex tasks, but I think that's what the ROM needs: lots of desktop X programs for when you need to sit down and do some work (using only what tools you carry in your pants pockets -- people tied to desks or home computers all the time probably won't appreciate this ability); a few PDA programs for quick tasks; and a larger virtual resolution, either via VNC or something native to X. (It kinda bothers me when the OK and Cancel buttons for a dialog are drawn off the bottom of the screen.) Maybe some kind of Palm emulator, for some license-violating slow-executing PDA goodness. :)

I wouldn't buy a new Zaurus just to do X11 until this ROM improves, but for those of us who already have the hardware, this is great. Can't argue with more free capabilities. :)

Title is misleading

[Erwos]

The title, and even the body of the submitted news are somewhat misleading, in that they imply this is the first time X has been put on a PDA. At handhelds.org, GPE has been running on X for a good long time, and IIRC, even Opie has an X port.

To be fair, though, this is the first time I've ever seen full-out KDE running on a PDA, so this is something new. Definitely, it's an interesting accomplishment that the author should be proud of.

-Erwos

Re:Title is misleading

[Emrys]

And the Agenda VR3, which is/was all X, all the time, using a custom WM built with FLTK.

Heh...

[Anonymous Coward]

This kicks ass. Now what we need is Linux for ARM-based palms. :D

Who on earth came up with the name?

[adrianbaugh]

Don't they realise that cack is a euphemism for "shit" or "godawful"? While naming libcaca was quite appropriate in a self-deprecating ironic way, cacko is not a good name for a distribution you want to be taken seriously.

Re:Who on earth came up with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

first thing that came to mind for me was those big round demons in doom...

Re: YEAH! Opie!

[Quantum-Sci]

I've had Opie on my IPaq 3950 for six months, and it is great. I tried it in desperation, when PPC2002 refused to reliably sync, and then relieved me of two months of vital information.

It is not an X-based system, but is Linux through and through. Intuitive. Comprehensive. I question the relevance and efficiency of X anyway, these days.

Opie shows what a fine bit of hardware the 3950 actually is.

QTopia.zaurus X11.zaurus

[Anonymous Coward]

look, judging by the nature of your statement, you've never used Sharp's brand of QTopia for the zaurus. It sucks. period. Now opie is slightly more decent but the OpenZaurus guys (who run pretty much the only rom w/ Opie standard) are a bunch of dickheads (i mean you kergoth!)...

And if you hadn't read above, it's more about the WIDE RANGE of available apps that having more "generic" linux environment available offers. Sure, you can re-compile Qt apps to use the qte libs with "minimal hacking", which is a bunch of bullshit... and anyways, what about gtk support? Xlib? Nope, notta. QTopia has it's own windowing system, so it screws everything up.

Cacko, now especially with the gentoo for zaurus environment (its just a chroot shell right now), provides a pretty complete gentoo environment, plus distcc[!], which means the zaurus becomes a totally bitchin platform to do all kinds of interesting stuff

This week the cacko team is going to release an updated cacko-x11 ROM with glib-2.3.2 ... hows that suit ya? HMM? HUH?!?!?! YOU WANT SOME PUNK!?!?!

LETS GO! 3 O'CLOCK AT THE PLAYGOROUND~!
GHKLSDFG!!#@#!!

Pocket PC 2000

[Dan East]

Microsoft got it right with Pocket PC 2000. PPC 2002 was just a minor upgrade.

I do agree that just because you have a 640x480 display (with touchscreen in place of a mouse) does not mean that the standard windowing GUI paradigm (Mac, Windows, X, etc) is appropriate.

Further, unless widgets and the like can be scaled up (ie 2x) then it would be next to impossible to even tap on them. Imagine a toolbar with 8 buttons in a row, each 2mm in width. I don't think even a perfectly aligned touchscreen can resolve input at that resolution - you wouldn't even be able to see the button for the end of the stylus.

As a Windows CE developer since 1997 I still see areas that need substantial improvement with the Pocket PC gui, however they have certainly made vast improvement from their first palm-sized OS (Windows CE 2.11). That is a rant for a different thread. :)

Dan East

Re:Pocket PC 2000

[fireboy1919]

Not a Linux user, I take it?

Window managers are extremely customizable, and by comparison to other operating systems, are even easy to create. There's no need for a tool bar that runs along the bottom of the screen, and no limit to icon sizes. Further, while the standard windowing GUI paradigm may not be appropriate, doesn't mean that SOME Windowing paradigm shouldn't be applied.

Lumping X with Mac and Windows is a little unfair, considering it's flexibility and their lack of it. It's like saying that the standard method of programming used by RISC assembly, CISC assembly, and perl are not usable for writing webpages.

Remote X?

[Mister Furious]

Could this be used as a remote X terminal? I haven't looked into the prices of these things, so it'd probably be cost-prohibitive (or at least cost-a-lot), but it could be really useful to have access to my main machine's desktop as I walk around the office.

Re:Remote X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can use vnc to connect to your machine. It's already ported (and working in the native zaurus GUI): http://killefiz.de/zaurus/showdetail.php?app=186

Re:Remote X?

[gregarican]

Besides VNC you can even run a Windows Terminal Services client. Think it's called WinZConnect or something. I used both awhile back to remotely administer my Windows-based WAN from my Zaurus PDA. The Linux kernel was built with PPTP support so I could use that or OpenSSH tunneling. It was great. Plugged into my cell phone via a CompactFlash card. Anywhere I was I could remote in and do what I needed to.

Long term I was looking to deploy the PDA's as remote salesperson units. They could run wireless VoIP client software, use PIM apps, as well as connect to Intranet resources. But Sharp really dicked over the North American markets by pulling much of the Zaurus line so I put mine up on eBay. The SL-7xx series has to be imported from Japan and reloaded with Americanized stuff. It was cool running gcc, MySQL, Apache, PHP, etc. on my SL-5500 though!

But I just got mine!

[martin_b1sh0p]

Does this mean I now have to sell my Zaurus 5600 and buy the 760 to get a decent X11 based distro!!! Doh!

Re:But I just got mine!

[Anonymous Coward]

do it in an instant.

I have a c700, c760 and a 5600. The 5600 is mostly a test device.

The 700/760 has the clamshell form factor -- do not underestimate how nice this is.

The 700/760 has 640x480. That is amazing. 320x240 just doesn't cut it.

Combined with pxa255, 64mb ram, min 512mb sd/cf .... this is a mini computer. Plop in a 512mb sd, cf wifi.. and let it sit on your network at home. Use a laptop (with a larger physical screen display, larger keyboard) ... and you can't even tell you're on a pda.

figure it out ...

[Anonymous Coward]

oooooh, your non-knowing flame/troll hurts so bad.

Actually, although *I* personally don't run the gentoo yet... I hear only the emerge or config... takes part on the zaurus, the actual compiling is handed off to a remote (faster?) linux box.

So, all your code-base compile for us.

Desktops versus Distros...

[stillaftermath]

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.

They still don't get it

[Feint]

The point of a PDA is a digital assistant. By porting X/gcc/etc to it, you get a nice demonstration of C/C++ portability, but you also end up with (another) underpowered desktop.

The reason for PDAs is not to shrink the desktop to fit in your pocket. They exist to provide pinpoint functionality at your fingertips without having to boot ro lug around your laptop/desktop.

If the same amount of manhours was put into getting a real PDA environment on top of linux (ie. syncs with outlook, has a taskpad, reads word docs etc) instead of repeated ports of X/perl/gcc/emacs to a handheld, the linux would already dominate the handheld market...
if you want something starting to get close, look at opie.handhelds.org... They aren't there yet but at least its not another "port the kitchen sink to handheld xyz" project.

Portable Distro While You're at work

[ripcrd]

Sounds like the perfect use for a LiveCD of Linux and a USB device to save to when done. There are ways to get dev tools on a Live CD. In Morphix, you just make your own custom CD, say of LightGUI, and add the devel minimod. Then you have gcc, make and everything else you need. Save to a memory stick when done and bingo, the PC looks like it was never touched.

I would unplug from the network though or you might leave a fingerprint on the DHCP server.

Re:Portable Distro While You're at work

[ripcrd]

Man, gentoo on the Zaurus is going to be great when I get done compiling.

(6 weeks later)
Hey, I've got a command line now. Time to compile X11.
(6 months later)
Hey, I got X compiled, but it doesn't work and I still need a Window Manager.
(6 months later)
I got X fixed, I got KDE installed, but damn it's slow. I'm going to compile a smaller WM, like Fluxbox.
(2 months later)
Nirvana.
(6 months later)
User dead of stress from waiting on compiler.

Re:Portable Distro While You're at work

[jasonwea]

That's why you setup a cluster of them. Makes compiling much faster ;)

I'm looking forward to the future...

[Qbertino]

Imagine on of these or something of simular size with a 60 GB HDD, 2 Gig RAM, 300 Mhz Sysclock, 1280 resolution and OpenGL 2 hardware 3D acceleration with 128 RAM of texturespace.
UT2k3 or T2 on the bus. When you get bored you fire up blender and start building some new mods. Cool.

Or something like this:
"X is doing a LAN Party. I think I'll drop by and play a match or two."
"You have to go home and get your box."
"No, I got it right here in my jacketpocket" :-)

Re:I'm looking forward to the future...

[Bryan_W]

You mean something like the OQO?

Survival strategies for street games?

[fastenrath]

I was wondering if anybody could recommend suitable survival strategies for street games? I'm not talking about games for children but about the very expensive type of game where whole cities start acting around a single person (the player) and newspaper articles, TV news and hollywood movies are made with bits and pieces taken from that person's diary or even his brain ..

(Yes, telepathy is possible, just very expensive - read last year's news if you don't believe it.)

While it can be very entertaining to have the whole world revolve around you (including politicians and hollywood stars) the ultimate goal of this kind of game is to kill the player.

My interest is not purly academical: I'm trapped in a street game right now and you might see why I very much want to break out of this one.

If you're wondering what a street game is like: It's like being trapped in The Matrix and The Game, with a bit of The Truman Show and Being John Malkovich thrown in.

The game is wasting a lot of money around me to annoy me and surprise me, but it's more like a cat playing with a mouse it intends to kill sooner or later.

If you want to help me break ouf of this game you can make 25.000 Euro, which is my offer for anybody who explains to me what this matrix is, I'm trapped in.

I'm not sure I can be reached by internet or by phone and even if you reach somebody it might be somebody pretending to be me (so don't waste your time on that). The only way I recommend (without really knowing what's going on, of course) is to get close enough to me that the game has to pay your for your cooperation. Since my offer is 25.000 Euro you should be able to get this money from the game if they need you to cooperate.

Please make them pay this amount as I really would like to see them run out of money!

You can find me in the following places. (please have a look at my homepage and/or my journal for updates to this travel plan):

Addis Ababa: just getting thrown out by the police.
Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, 28-29 January 2004.
New York, Central Park, 01-03 February 2004.
Chicao, ?, 04-06 February 2004.
Los Angeles, 07-12 February 2004.
Sydney, 13-15 February 2004.
Tokyo, 16-18 Feburary 2004.
Bombay, 19-21 Feburary 2004.

long overdue

[ajagci]

The Zaurus is really nifty hardware, but it has been held back by QPE: the Qt/Embedded based desktop made it very hard to port GUI apps to the Zaurus and it was slow and memory hungry compared to X11. It also really didn't have a very good GUI in my opinion.

I don't know whether the X11-based GUI will be any more usable as a PDA, but I do know that with a full X11 environment, the Zaurus can carve out a niche for itself for "vertical apps" (applications specific to particular industry sectors) that previously required far too much effort to port to Qt.

Furthermore, with a 640x480 screen and a 200-400MHz processor, the argument that the handheld should run anything other than desktop software becomes really weak anyway.

Slash gets it backwards, as usual

[Bitmanhome]

This is truly bringing desktop linux to the PDA.

That's not a PDA, that's a micro-laptop. It has a processor, lots of RAM, a display, and a keyboard. Granted, we surpassed those specs 5-10 years ago, but it really is a laptop. So it's natural a full Linux distro would work, as would DOS and Windows.

YEARG

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another device that I will never see because all my money goes to college. I hope to one day be able to own such devices.

What browser is usable with it?

[orn]

Mozilla and Firebird are incredibly slow on these processors. Dillo doesn't even do Frames, much less SSL and such, plus it's not very pen friendly.

What browsers can be used with these tiny, slow, pen based systems that won't make you want to gouge your eyeballs out?

Re:What browser is usable with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's Opera for Zaurus 5500CL. I've used it one time (the PDA, with Opera) and it worked quite okay. Not as fast as on my other computers, but still. Give it a try! Opera will most likely run even faster on that new Zaurus than on the 5500CL. Also, Mozilla and Mozilla-Firebird can be tweaked to be made faster. Turning of AA-fonts for example.

Re:What browser is usable with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

NetFront comes with the Stock ROM for the c7x0/860 as well as Opera. In our distro (Cacko Linux) we have an embedded form of Konqueror.

omin0us

no need to imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to imagine, it maybe a little bigger but it is called the JVC Interlink.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Sexual Asspussy is something that's good 4 me!!

[ShockerFan]

Dear sir:

Let me start this letter by congratulating you on your effectiveness as a member of CLIT. You are truly the James Bond of the FP scene. Regarding your unicode sig, I have been curious for some time as to the meaning when translated from the Kanji (my guess) to Engrish. Would you be so kind as to translate it for me?

Sincerely,
ShockerFan

Re:Sexual Asspussy is something that's good 4 me!!

[ShockerFan]

Thank you, oh glorious master, for your encouraging words. I will soon make myself CLIT-worthy, as I have many other karma-rich accounts due to copious karma whoring and mod farming.

eBay sucker

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have known better that they offer no buyer protection at all.
With this knowledge - why does ANYONE use eBay AT ALL???? I'm puzzled.

For those who has found 404 instead of screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cacko.biz/screenshots.php?menuid=2 Enjoy :)

Maybe you don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

But if there already is an Opie and other people want to port X then what is the problem really?

People write the code that they want to and other people complain that they aren't writing the code they they aren't interested in writing.

Familiar

[Seth Golub]

I've been running Familiar, which uses X11, on my iPaq for over two years. It's fun to push windows to it over 802.11b ethernet.

Trolling about packaging systems again?

[axxackall]

Yes I know that it's based on Gentoo and you can emerge software, but it's not a true package management system, like, say, apt-get.

Excuse me, but what makes you think that apt-get is a true package management system, while Portage is not?

Please, prove your troll with comparing Portage vs apt-get side-by-side or appologize for your troll right here.

Re:Trolling about packaging systems again?

[Trejkaz]

Well for one, apt-get will reliably and always install the package optimised for the 386, whereas Gentoo will be pesky and optimise it for whatever you're running. Blasted thing. :-)

Re:Trolling about packaging systems again?

[axxackall]

You are talking about something that you don't know *and* you don't understand it *and* you don't even try to know or understand it.

For the rest of people who read this thread and don't know Gentoo Portage too, but want to know it:

Portage is the a way of fine-grained control over your system and over installation process on your system. It can optimize compiled sources to the system you have (which is actually a good thing!) or (it's your choice) it can get binaries of that package already optimized to one of typical hardware types (in case of x86 platform: x386, x686, P3, P4, AMD84 etc).

I fail to see why this fine-grained control is worse than apt-get, whose functionality is just a sub-set of one of Portage.

Re:Trolling about packaging systems again?

[Anonymous Coward]

axxackall, meet sarcasm. Sarcasm, meet axxackall. (You american?)

Re:Trolling about packaging systems again?

[axxackall]

But we both meet "anonymous coward" :)

(You american?)

What did I do wrong or stupid that you thought so bad about me?

Haha!

[Trejkaz]

LOL! Obviously I was joking, but the information you gave was good anyway. Too few people understand why USE flags are a good thing. :-)

Re:If only I had a Zaurus.....

[Bodhammer]

Cancel the trasaction and try here: http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SL-550 0-N