Slashdot Mirror
Linux PDA Resurfaces in U.S.
An anonymous reader writes "A high-end Linux-based Sharp Zaurus PDA thought to be discontinued in the US is actually available from two sources. The SL-6000L is available from stock from 10East, a seller of vertical market systems for the railroad industry which has established a direct manufacturing relationship with Sharp Japan, it says. The Wi-Fi equipped SL-6000L is also available in single quantities from SDG Systems, which, incidentally, is porting Linux to several PDAs that normally run Windows, including the super-rugged TDS Recon."
I won't buy one -- because it's discontinued. (support is important, or we'd still have TI/994As running Parsec between meetings)
Next story.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It's like finding a species thought to be extinct! Seriously.
Tux at my fingertips!
Ad for Disconinued Models or Clearance?
Freudian slip. This is a con. Nice!
We need more linux PDA's period. I still want linux on my ipaQ 4350 I wonder how much I can do with 400MHz processor and wifi. My main problem is that the integrated keyboard isnt supported.
Does it run Linux? ...oh wait
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
I own a Zaurus 5500 and have used a 5600, and judging from my use of these two systems, I would not recomend doing much with these PDA's if you want to add much software that does not come with it.
I was overjoyed with the prospect of linux on a PDA and got it, and the build in keypad seemed to be a great asset. Compact flash AND SD card slots made me think that this little thing was a diamond in the rough. But it went downhill. They keypad would sometimes malfunction and require a reboot to get it to work again, package finding for the zaurus is a nightmare, and don't bother trying to find a belt holster for it without getting one custom made.
They are great using for little apointment scheduling, wireless lan sniffing, network diagnosis (what I do with it) and playing the odd game of destroyer, but really, if you are thinking about the wonderful linux stability and versitility, you may have to think again.
also making progress
...twice shy
I love the idea of the sharp zaurus, but the problem I find with them is the lack of support for key things.
A while ago I bought a SL-5500 just to find out that Sharp wasn't going to support it as soon as the 6000 series came out. This irks me because it's still a decent PDA, but I can't get any real upgrades for it now. In essence, I'm stuck running sharp's horribly outdated rom, or one of the openzaurus roms which are habitually buggy, and don't get updated very often.
Another issue I have with sharp is while they're all about Linux on the PDA, they don't seem interested in writing software to sync the PDA with a Linux workstation. This doesn't make any sense to me at all, since the majority of people who would buy a PDA like this probably run Linux or Unix.
Anyhow, Sharp already got $600 CAD out of me once, I don't know if I'll be willing to go through it again.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The article says that 10East currently has about 1,500 SL-6000Ls in stock, of which 300 and 400 are currently unallocated. It orders about 300 each month, in order to keep reserve stocks on hand.
This amount seems a little low, especially if this slashdot post causes many people to buy them. If slashdotters bought all the ones in stock, would it be the first instance of slashdotting a store? Or have there been others in the past?
What I'd really like is an updated HP100LX or 200LX. I wore mine out. It was the perfect PDA; 2AA batteries, ran DOS (5? 3? forget), you could get Borland Turbo C++ to run on it no problem. Lotus 1-2-3 was in ROM. Even had a seperate numeric keypad, so it was actually useful as a calculator, too.
One of my favorite memories of this calculator was using the wonderful symbolic math package, Derive! in my engineering classes - While the prof was sketching out crude appoximations, I could fire up and get a really nice picture. Symbolic step-by-step reductions were handy for checking homework too.
Had a real keyboard with the beautiful HP signature tactile response. Grey transflective screen didn't need a backlight. I hacked an LED to run off the serial port on mine for night use.
It would be very interesting to see what could be put in the same forum factor and weight these days. I really miss the clamshell design with a real keyboard.
This was "kinda" the form factor that the first WinCE devices had, but they were much bigger and heavier, and worst of all, they only ran WinCE which made them more or less useless for any real work. None had seperate numeric keypads that would make them useful for engineering and scientific work.
A pox on those short-sighted MBA's at HP who ruined a real gem of engineering and turned it into a fond memory.
Saddest of all; my hp48 is starting to die, and the palm T3 emulation is nice, but not the same.
..don't panic
Dinosaurs, once thought to be exitinct, are found in new location here: http://www.jurassicpark.com/
Oh wait.....
This is why: pdaXrom
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Newsflash: Retailer slashdoted in real life as geeks run to their nearest store!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
and this was moded insightful at one point.
Interesting to say the least.
That yin yang shows up in all aspects of life, so I guess it's no suprise.
I'll be adding this to my collection.
Balance is so important.
There was a slashdot game at one point if I remember.
You had to whore for karma and face many story rejections.
To funny from anti-slash:
# Old-timer sigs
* Back in my day I had to write games in BASIC, on a 4.7Mhz computer with no hard disk and 128K of RAM. And I was grateful.
This is so me!
save that my experience was limited to the Timex Sinclair.
can I run ssh telnet on any of these devices ?
replied to this already, see above.
change mod from Troll to Redundant.
By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions.
lol, only on days where my finger hasn't poked through the toilet paper. :P
Gather 'round all ye geeks and I shall tell ye the tale of the linux PDA! 'Tis a grand beast, known only to those worth of total geekdom, and cared about be even fewer. Dare ye join the ranks of such geeks who actually care?
BORING!! Come on, why is this important enough to make front page news? Slashdot is puching the limits of when I actually believe they are more than just an advertisement for whomever they are in bed with this week...
The SDG Systems product page.
The manuals (pdf).
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
Not true, my friend. The Zaurus PDAs are some of the most flexible PDAs out there today, with a wide variety of software, with everything from SNES emulators to FTP servers. You won't get very far with the default software, however. I recommend installing something like OPIE or Watapon for the 5600. Some of the software is very mature. I hope to see more Linux PDAs in the States. They are all about customization.
If you're looking for a start, try the OE forums. After you get a new OS image on there, you will probably be much more satisfied.
Not on the Zarus, but on iPAQ's!
http://handhelds.org/projects/skiffcluster.html
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
This is news? Slashdot, you used to be cool.
-Emoticon
Targus has a model that fits the Zaurus excellently, is available in most stores, and is quite inexpensive.
C HUS01
http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=
It even has a little sleeve inside for your wifi or other accesory card.
* Back in my day I had to write games in BASIC, on a 4.7Mhz computer with no hard disk and 128K of RAM.
Me too. I had an IBM PCjr which was actually pretty outdated at the time we got it (though we got a great deal on it). 128k of RAM was not enough to play most of the game coming out at that time (most required 512k or at least 256k), so all I could do was program in BASIC. I was lucky enough to have the cartridge ROM version of basic, which meant it didn't load into RAM, so I had most of that 128k for my programs. DOS 2.10 only took about 10k if I remember correctly. Lots of neat stuff you could do with the version of BASIC, it was really great and learning those skills at that early age was good for me. It would've been better if I got started on say Pascal or C, and I was stuck trying to move on from BASIC for a long time before I finally did (in high school).
The TDS website has a "Fish Tank cam" just showing that these PDAs are ready for under-water activities like scuba-driving and/or fcsking in a lagoon. With or without a partner.
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
Agreed. You can have your choice of several polished ROMs (think Distributions), I use Cacko on my 860. It's a close cousin to the Sharp ROM with several improvements. They recently had a new version pushed out the door.
Or you can run pdaXrom, it runs a native version of X so almost any linux program can be cross-compiled for it. They are working on their latest RC (currently version 1.1.0 rc9).
Or you can try Open Zaurus, they just came out with version 3.5.3, many new features, very, very, slick. (I'll be trying it out later when I get the time).
The Z is the perfect little hacker tool, you can basically get anything that runs on a desktop on the Z (within reason).
There are a lot of programs orphaned by individuals that are no loger supported, but these are stand-alone programs and don't apply to the core development. I pretty much stick to what comes with the ROMs so these programs are of little interest to me.
The big problem is Sharp's lack of interest in selling outside of Asia. And they tend to be pricey.
I dream in binary.
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.
Roms based on openzaurus with an updated qtopia-2.1.1, that will sync with Linux, Mac OSX and Windows are available for the sl6000, as well as other Zaurus including the a300, from Trolltech's new Qtopia Community web site:
http://www.qtopia.net
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
I'm posting as AC but I hope someone notices this.
Currently I run Opie+Familiar on an aging Ipaq 3600. It's chugging reliably along, but I want to upgrade to something with (A) 802.11, (B) VGA, and if possible, (C) CF or SD without needing an expansion sleeve.
Also I want to continue to run Opie and my current suite of apps. But it seems that most of the new VGA format PDAs are not supported by Familiar. Only pretty old stuff seems to have support.
I considered the Sharp series, but they are SO expensive, and perhaps also discontinued.
Is there a good choice for a VGA+802.11 PDA that will run Familiar, and actually have the 802.11 work?
happy to oblige, one redundant mod...
...just run linux on another PDA, e.g. an iPAQ. I'm running the Familiar Distribution (http://familiar.handhelds.org/) on my 5450, and it's great. Although I still have to decide which UI is better, GPE or Opie, since the storage space is only enough for one of them. But well, it wouldn't be Linux if you do not have a choice, I guess it's vi vs. emacs, gnome vs. kde all over again, and it all now happens inside your shirt pocket :-)
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
???????????????? http://www.dynamism.com/sl-c3000 http://www.pricejapan.com/stock/spec.php?product_i d=313
keep up with the times!
I'm quite happy with mine. I'm pecking out this post in Opera at 480x640 while listening to MP3s streamed from my server via an SMB share from a different floor in my house.
Got it in Oct 2004 when Amazon had them on deep-discount. I'm still happy with my purchase.
Still, a few gripes:
* no decent RSS reader
* included media player only supports MP3/WAV/AVI/MPG2; no OGG or MOD/S3M/XM/IT or DivX support. It also only reads from hardcoded dir paths (on the CF, SD, and int. flash) -- it won't read from USB drives (with the Z's USB host), mounted SMB shares, etc. I use a Python + ncurses app called "cplay" for this...
* 802.11b radio could be stronger (the Z only draws 5W though, so you expect a tradeoff)
* use these PIM apps instead of Sharp's; they're *MUCH* better
* IIRC, the 2D hardware accel is disabled by default, meaning redraws can be slow (somebody is working on this though); this means video is usually choppy and emulated games - even the NES emu (fceu) - are intolerable
* it's relatively-large for a PDA
* pkg management could be better
Positives include:
* decent Word/Excel apps
* wi-fi works stably and fast overall
* stable OS
* Kismet works very well
* displays PDFs faster than my 2.4GHz laptop
* Opera is awesome on this thing...
Overall, it's great for traveling with as a laptop replacement. Good for light surfing, wardriving, reading books, listening to MP3s, etc.. It's true that if you think of it as "a Linux box in your hands", rather than a mere PDA, you'll understand the 6000L'z usefulness much easier. Despite the above annoyances, I love mine and really do use it every day... I replaced my Handspring Visor because of its very limited functionality and haven't missed it since...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
I was similarly enchanted by Psion handhelds (I have had Psion 3 and Revo). Great keyboard, superb battery lifetime, fast apps in ROM. Absolutely the world's best calendaring software... Not many third party apps, though.
Well, my Psion Revo finally died, so I bought Zaurus CL-760 directly from Japan (Zaurus 7XX series has a keyboard, unlike 5XXX or 6XXX series). As a Linux geek I'm happy with it, although in some regards Psions still take the lead.
And no, I haven't run the Sharp supplied ROM in ages, the Sharp compatible Cacko ROM is great but a true mini-laptop feeling can achieved using the pdaX ROM.
The 480x640 screen on this is utterly *gorgeous*, and rotating to landscape mode is smooth and seamless.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Apple was still building Newton 2100's for a big company up until recently. This was because they had a long term support and deployment contract with this company.
Wish I remembered who they were...
But as long as it's profitable for the manuf. and the company buying them can still use them - why not?
People would be better off with a good old Apple Newton...
Apple HAD a good pda after all. I used one from the office just once. I am sad to say that I had to stop using it because it was so damn good and I don't have a mac to synch it with... >_
Now the Agenda was certainly promising except for the screen, it looked like crap. I was ready to buy one when it came out but the screenshots of it working left a lot to with for.
Your PDA are belong to us... get it?
Have a good one.
===== "Every head is a different world so don't invade mine you FREAK!" smartSAGA said
did a search on google and found these reviews:
Sharp's Zaurus SL-6000L: A Free Software PDA
Zaurus with VGA Screen, Wi-Fi Now Available in U.S.
Sharp Zaurus SL-6000L Linux PDA
Review of Sharp Zaurus SL-6000
Sharp Zaurus SL-6000L Review
------------------------
here are all the reviews from customers on amazon.com.
HD Trailers
The folding clamshell zauruses, while somewhat awkward as a pda/pim have much better keyboards, and are much more usable as mini-pc. Only problem is: they're Japanese- so change the locale, or buy from a US reseller that will change it for you.
Your best bets are:
Cheapest prices for new Zaurus. Based in Japan. Minimal service.
Decent prices, based in US.
Major importer/reseller in Deutscheland/EU
Most established US importer/retailer. Not cheap, but excellent service.
Excellent prices, new and used, but hasn't been responsive recently. Japan based.
First, nothing begins if not opening
How about innovative company using available hardware and software to meet customer needs?
I won't buy one -- because it's discontinued. (support is important, or we'd still have TI/994As running Parsec between meetings)
Support for a $250 pocket gadget? What's that? Why do you need it?
I don't get your negative attitude. My personal needs are satisfied by an original handspring visor. A Zaurus 5500 is lots of fun, especially with the release of OZ GPE 3.5.3. It is indeed a near laptop replacement and beats the hell out of any silly Wince or Pocket Peeee Ceeee. A 5600 or 6000 would rock.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
We (the http://pdaxrom.org/ team) are in final testing of the pdaXrom support for the SL6000L - everything is working 90% (only a few apm problems and configuration utils are broken).
If someone would buy the rights to the 5 series http://www.jarno.demon.nl/psion5.htm/ and update it with a good colour screen (and perhaps wifi) I would get one immediately.
!ERR: Signature not found.
what the fuck is that ascii art supposed to be? it makes no sense. knowing you people it's likely to involve a dong somehow, but it's totally indecipherable.
Are you sure it was the keyboard malfunctioning? On a few occasions mine's started generating what looked like random characters, but it turned out that I'd just accidentally got it into num-lock, which doesn't need a reboot to clear it.
And the great thing about it is that you can write your own applications that can run on the Zaurus and your main Linux machine. Like the MySQL database-based system that I run on both of my machines to maintain my website.
Last time I checked people have a definitive list of what they want a PDA to do. As far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter if it's written in Cobol and runs on the same chip as the ZX81 as long as it does what they want. Often this is:
- Syncs nicely with Outlook
- Calendar, contacts, notes and tasks
- Alarms, reminders
- Logical UI
- Ability to see what they have to do soon/today on one screen
- Small, light, good looking, nice screen, long battery life
- Plenty of applications - preferably free (as in at no-cost)
Having Linux on a PDA isn't a big seller to many. We have Linux on phones and people still say "so what?". The magical cost savings that Linux supposidly gives aren't passed onto the customer - at the end of the day, its what runs on top of the OS and what features and functionality it has, not what the OS is.Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Everbodies's complaining about lack of software, etc, etc. Folks, you can run a full install of Debian on even a 5500 (which is what I have). I run firefox, thunderbird and just about any other app I want as they're all available from the Debian arm archive! I went into a big rant on /. once about it, got so much email about it I put it up on a web page. Anyway, a karma-whoring I go, see here:
:-)
http://undertow.2y.net/zaurus/
On my page you'll find cool stuff like my (unmaintained) SLapASS program (wireless app that uses kismet to sniff out networks and then associate with 'em, among other things), an ext3 driver I compiled after getting sick of long fsck's on my 1GB SD card, and I've compiled the great passive OS fingerprinting app "p0f" for the arm platforms and made it available there as well.
Anyway, enjoy crushing my web server
-- I speak only for myself.
Amazon has three of them starting at 750.
0 1W17H2/103-0856549-4123802?v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00
Gorkman
Support is far from extinct. I help run http://www.oesf.org/ and I designed http://www.elsix.org/ . We have plenty of support for these devices right on those sites, including tons of free software.
:)
Check us out; we're always welcoming new people to our little community
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
While the 5600 does have its quirks, I have an 860 and I have no problems with it. Plenty of software is available at http://www.elsix.org/ (actually, I believe we're up to 1800 pieces of software now) if you don't have enough.
You can run your Zaurus like any other PDA, or if you want install http://www.pdaxrom.org/ and you have a full linux setup with Matchbox.
The Zaurus is definately harder to pick up and figure out than the average PDA, but the benefits are well worth it.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
I had one...note the word HAD. I liked the fact that it ran Linux. I liked the fact that I could have a shell, I could surf the next in color, etc. However, it was pretty much useless when it came to working with the standards that my company has put down. Getting it to sync with Outlook was impossible because the software that came with it didn't work. This was only the beginning. I gave it two months. As a small Linux-based computer, it rocks. As a practical tool for actually getting anything done away from your business desktop, don't hold your breath.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Your /. nick is now associated with a horrible blockbuster movie, so I'm not sure if that helps any or not. I would sue the filmmakers if I were you, and retire off *that*. :-)
Such a travesty -- what they've done to such a cool series of, mostly, books.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
This made me happy, since I am a long time owner of the SL-5500, and I haven't had a problem with mine. I almost bought the SL-5000, but luckily I was able to pre-order the SL-5500 and waited patiently for its release.
War Eagle!
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Yet it does not. There have been a few Linux PDAs, but non have seriously threatened Palm and WinCE for market share.
I have an I-mate PDA2K (also known as O2, MDA III, various other names). It is really nifty, combining a GSM phone, GPRS, and Wifi. The only problem is the Pocket PC operating system. The functionality is nothing short of spectacular, but it's unstable. I end up having to hit the reset button once or twice a day.
Considering that Linux runs great on a $75 Linksys broadband router, I would expect more effort in the PDA market. Most of the "pocket" applications barely work with MS Office files, so I can't imagine MS compatibility as being of much importance. Maybe X windows is tough to port to stylus-driven hardware -- I don't know. If the manufacturers made a serious effort to recruit the open source community, I would have a speedy PDA with a lean-and-mean OS that might not even need a reset button! I sometimes wonder what would happen if somebody tried to run a PDA based entirely on a web browser and stripped-down versions of Linux/Apache/Mysql/Php.
Of all the PDA manufacturers, Sharp seems to be the one of the few that "gets it". But they never sold enough hardware (at least in the US) to achieve critical mass. Some day, someone will figure out what it takes to transition the PDA market to OSS.
In fact, you don't want Linux at all. A portion of the proceeds from every iPaQ sale go to extinguishing Linux. The company you are paying to wipe out Tux just reported record-breaking sales. The stock market rewarded them with a higher price as naive /.ers rejoiced that profits were down. Wake up! Buy a Zaurus if you want a Linux pda. Or a Yopy.
Now if Apple had put it out in a shiny white case with a big red slash through a microsoft logo, that would be the ./ trinity!
Anyone ever actually see or use an Invair Filewalker? The design appeals to me put I have never seen them for sale in the States...I am a "try before I buy" type.
I fart in your general direction.
It looks like a really nice PDA, but for the cost it makes me wonder if one wouldn't be better off buying a much more powerful handtop like the Sony U750P or the OQO. Sure they cost a bit more, but you are getting much more for your money.
...are belong to Wegener Media in South Carolina. $60 for an eMate. They are still cool, although you're going to need an old (Beige G3 or earlier) Mac to sync with.
/., because I would like one of these for myself.
I hope I'm not going to regret putting this link on
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I don't exactly read Computer World or whatever that giant book is nowadays. But I do read SlashDot. So when a product I'm really interested comes out, I'm *quite* happy to hear about it here. Yay!
--LWM
It is the hardware manufacturers fault!
This is why the PDA market is struggling to gain any sort of foothold in corporate America.
10east decides to go with a "linux" solution for the new push towards the "mobile workforce" inititives in
the railroad industry. (A big push and a big market).
Much time and money is spent in developing the software for these "Specialized" devices.
Software and Hardware is rolled out -- everyone is happy.
Hardware company stops providing and supporting devices in the American Market.
How does solutions provider keep machines fixed up and replacement machines at the ready?
This problem is not unique to Sharp and Linux on the PDA. How many companies have tried to
roll out applications for PDA's (Ipaq, HP, Dell, and countless other companies that no longer
build PDA's) that are no longer supported after their 6 month lifespan.
Spare parts no longer available after a year. No firmware updates. No Support.
Yet companies are trying to roll out multi million dollar software solutions and
getting stabbed in the back and abandoned by the hardware people that "load up the
wagons" and leave town in less than a year.
So -- is the fact that 10east is getting into the hardware re-sell business a success story? No -- it is the failure of Sharp to have any BALLS!
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I have not collected MY retirement just yet.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
My Z syncs quite well with Mandriva Linux 2005 Limited Edition and you can easily get it to run, at least with KDE.
My SD acts weird, but I thought that was because of some kind of crummy DRM, the "secure" in Secure Digital. Yep, that's the problem. In any case, I make use of the gadget with a pc card adaptor. Cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did and I've had no data problems yet. With DRM built into it, however, there's no telling what it may do. I prefer the CF format and use it when I can.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
You guys are looking at the wrong model. The 6000 is ok if you are American but the model to look at is the SLC3000.
Try http://www.conics.net/ or http://www.dynamism.com/.
These are the two most popular sites for getting the latest models. Both provide warranty.
All these models are extrememly well supported through forums and the like. You can easily get an English ROM for these Japanese models.
They are infinitely hackable.
Linux PDA Resurfaces in U.S.
I lost my Zaurus about 2 months ago. When I read the title, I was really hoping you had found my missing $350 handheld. Doh!
It's "jihad" in arabic. Thanks for asking.