Qtopia, Opie Or Gpe?, what is the best to keep zaurus uptodate Options

[prygme]

I've a Zaurus 5500. I'm satisfied with it, and for a while I don't want to upgrade it to newer model. Also it's really hard to find any zaurus here in europe.
The original Sharp rom with qtopie was good enough for me. But now I want some more feature, like better battery status, more programs like gpsdrive, iso8859-2 character support, firewall etc. Also I want to keep useful proprietary programs like opera.
What is the best choice?
-Use a hybrid rom?
-Use Openzaurus? does it superior to original Sharp rom? or Sharprom still has some advantage? Can I use all qtopia programs on Openzaurus?
-Use Gpe? It's nice that it uses X by default. On the other hand, does gpe need more resources than qtopia? and does zaurus with gpe run out battery earlier? (because Xfree needs more resources) Can I use opie packages on gpe and vica versa?

Does it possible to use original Sharprom and openzaurus together in dual boot mode? (openzaurus booted from SDcard while original Sharprom from internal flash)

Thanks

[koen]

-Use Gpe? It's nice that it uses X by default. On the other hand, does gpe need more resources than qtopia? and does zaurus with gpe run out battery earlier? (because Xfree needs more resources) Can I use opie packages on gpe and vica versa?

GPE doesn't use Xfree86, and GPE is part of the OpenZaurus distribution.

[lardman]

GPE doesn't use Xfree86

It uses kdrive & the diet-xlibs so it's reasonably slim.

Use Openzaurus? does it superior to original Sharp rom? or Sharprom still has some advantage?

You can run Opera if you flash an Opie/OZ image, though some programs won't work (Hancom sheet for example) due to the change to soft-float.


Si

[prygme]

So which is "better" opie or gpe? I know it's very subjective, but any personal opinions are useful.
If gpe uses kdrive and some "diet-xlibs", is it easier to port an X11 application to gpe, than opie?
And my old quietions. Will my zaurus runs out of power earlier if I use gpe or opie based openzaurus insted of original Sharprom & Qtopia?
Is it possible to use both of them on same zaurus (eg. dual boot sharprom and gpe/openzaurus)?
Can I run gpe applications, or normal apps like gimp on opie?

[lardman]

So which is "better" opie or gpe? I know it's very subjective, but any personal opinions are useful.

Difficult one. I'm using GPE at the moment, but both are good - I think you should go on the available apps and the ease of porting.

If gpe uses kdrive and some "diet-xlibs", is it easier to port an X11 application to gpe, than opie?

There is generally no porting to be done for GPE - just cross-compile it and it works. Opie is a different matter, and has the same porting issues as Qtopia as it's framebuffer based.

And my old quietions. Will my zaurus runs out of power earlier if I use gpe or opie based openzaurus insted of original Sharprom & Qtopia?

No, the two should perform the same.

Is it possible to use both of them on same zaurus (eg. dual boot sharprom and gpe/openzaurus)?

No, I don't think so - the Sharp 'ROM' uses old libs, uses hard-float and is compild with GCC2.95.3. OZ is compiled with GCC 3.x.x, uses soft-float and is up to date on the library front.

Can I run gpe applications, or normal apps like gimp on opie?

You can run gimp on GPE that's for sure; it's also possible I understand to 'dual boot' Opie & GPE; you could run GPE/X11 based apps under Opie using XQt - this is in the OZ feed iirc. Take a look at the XQt part of the forum for more info about how to get it working though as I'm not an expert.


Si

[Mickeyl]

If gpe uses kdrive and some "diet-xlibs", is it easier to port an X11 application to gpe, than opie?

There is generally no porting to be done for GPE - just cross-compile it and it works. Opie is a different matter, and has the same porting issues as Qtopia as it's framebuffer based.

While this is technically correct, it may lead to a slightly incomplete belief that every X application is automatically a GPE application, which is - of course - not true.

I suggest you use the term "X applications run fine in the GPE environment".

[lardman]

Yes. I should also add that cross-compiling is not always that easy either, so when I say "just cross-compile it and it'll work", it'll work, but you've got to get it to cross-compile first of course


Si

[prygme]

Thank you all the answares.
I'll try Gpe/Opeanzaurus, it seems OK to me. I need only opera on it as proprietary program from Sharprom.
One more question, if later I want to restore the original Qtopia/Sharprom, how can I do that? Is there any howto about backup and restore the Sharprom?

[lardman]

I'll try Gpe/Opeanzaurus, it seems OK to me. I need only opera on it as proprietary program from Sharprom.

Opera won't run under GPE/OZ, for this you'll need to use Opie/OZ with the compat libs.


Si

[Psion]

Thank you all the answares.
I'll try Gpe/Opeanzaurus, it seems OK to me. I need only opera on it as proprietary program from Sharprom.
One more question, if later I want to restore the original Qtopia/Sharprom, how can I do that? Is there any howto about backup and restore the Sharprom?

I would think all you need to do is re-flash the ROM using a CF card.