Watapon ROM, New custom ROM, for the 5600 Options

[osmedd]

But I'd have to second the vote for getting the Cacko ROM ported...

Any ideas what's involved in doing a port like this? I happen to have had an abrupt change in career status, so I have quite a bit of time at the moment (now that the dust has cleared at least).

[Chaos]

Have you done a full reboot since this happened with the WCF12? As in Utilities -> Shutdown and then hit Restart. That may fix the problem.

And on the Cacko, personally I think I'd prefer to just keep working on my own, for a couple reasons. One, I have all the power over what is done on it, rather than something someone else made... Second, it'd probably work best for one with both a C series and a 5600, considering it would probably not work well, blindly trying to make it work not know how it's supposed to work in the first place...

Of course if someone else wanted to do that I wouldn't try to stop you. This ROM is just a small personal project for me, really...

[scooper]

Just wanted to say thanks for producing a tastefully-done ROM for the 5600. The faster kernel, root user, omitted games, included opie-reader and advanced file manager, are perfect compromises for my needs. Hopefully others are benefitting as much as myself. I appreciate the effort and the contribution.

Thanks!!

[Chaos]

Just wanted to say thanks for producing a tastefully-done ROM for the 5600. The faster kernel, root user, omitted games, included opie-reader and advanced file manager, are perfect compromises for my needs. Hopefully others are benefitting as much as myself. I appreciate the effort and the contribution.

Thanks!!

Thanks for the compliments. I really appreciate this sort of feedback.

Next week I'll work on that IPK feed. More apps, and probably repackage the removed games into IPKs so you can install just the ones you want. Any suggestions of useful IPKs to put into the feed are greatly welcome.

[maslovsky]

And on the Cacko, personally I think I'd prefer to just keep working on my own, for a couple reasons. One, I have all the power over what is done on it, rather than something someone else made... Second, it'd probably work best for one with both a C series and a 5600, considering it would probably not work well, blindly trying to make it work not know how it's supposed to work in the first place...

Yes, it's totaly up to you - but I'd suggest to just take a peek on the Cacko ROM change log, between 1.165 and 1.21. If you like reinventing the wheel, then you're on the right track... Good luck

[scooper]

Some random suggestions.

findutils - so that find is more equivalent to what you get on the desktop.
vim - better vi editor.
gwCalc - or some other improved calculator.
vnc - with auto-started fbvncserver to make using the zaurus in a desktop window easy.
ssh/openssl
Default to TCP/IP over usb. Allows vnc, ssh, etc. to function "out of the box".

A database or better address book.
A simple scripting tool. Python would be my preference.

Another dream of mine is a webserver, e.g. Apache that provides useful access to information stored on the PDA. E.g. you could point a desktop web browser to http://192.168.129.201/pim/ and see the calendar, addresses, to-do's, etc. without synchronizing. It would be even better if you could edit through the web interface. Of course if I wasn't so lazy I'd work on this myself.

Hope this helps. Thanks again.

Cheers,
Steve

[Yasen]

(hey, this ROM is so close to the way I want it that I don't NEED to make changes ).

Have you tought of leting others to do the same? Isn't it posible to strip all exept necery setings tools, make all space enhacing triks and add freed space to internal flash.
For those 600kb you could ugrade Opera to 7.30. I don`t like the Sharp pims and use kpims. I'm not sure if this will free some space in the rom but surely will free some ram. There is a new version of clock and calculator wich will free some more ram.
BTW what kernel do you use?

[gilkyboy]

Thanks for the great ROM!!

I'm definitly starting to realize why I got a zaurus in the first place, and your ROM is great. My 5600 is a dream now.

I would like to request/suggest that you somehow manage to make it sync with linux like a good linux machine should, as I can't seem to figure it out. I'm pretty sure it's because it's based on the Sharp ROM. Is it possible to copy the files and imitate the way the 5500s used to sync on this ROM?

Again, thanks for the great ROM and keep up the good work!

[cleophus]

I'm having a problem with my SMC 2642W WiFi card. When I try to connect, I never get past the Initializing stage. It shows up in the menubar when inserted, and the link light blinks as it's trying to connect, but it eventually fails. The card works fine with the standard Sharp ROM. Any ideas?

[osmedd]

Just to followup on my problems with my WCF12... after flashing to the 1.2 Watapon ROM, everything worked great.

Also, I'd like to echo others support, this ROM is great!

I would like to get the new Opera though (hint hint).

[Chaos]

I would like to get the new Opera though (hint hint).

Ok, well I've been thinking about the next release. The Crystal icons will be in it.

Opera 7.3? I might, but I've heard bad things about speed on the Zaurus compared to 6.0... If anyone can give me some insight on the speed considerations, I'll definatly think hard about it.

[Chaos]

findutils - so that find is more equivalent to what you get on the desktop.
vim - better vi editor.
gwCalc - or some other improved calculator.
vnc - with auto-started fbvncserver to make using the zaurus in a desktop window easy.
ssh/openssl
Default to TCP/IP over usb. Allows vnc, ssh, etc. to function "out of the box".

A database or better address book.
A simple scripting tool. Python would be my preference.

Another dream of mine is a webserver, e.g. Apache that provides useful access to information stored on the PDA. E.g. you could point a desktop web browser to http://192.168.129.201/pim/ and see the calendar, addresses, to-do's, etc. without synchronizing. It would be even better if you could edit through the web interface. Of course if I wasn't so lazy I'd work on this myself.

Not bad suggestions, and I'll play around with some of them (for example vim shouldn't be too hard to swap in over vi [swapping it in because of space considerations]), but SSH, VNC, etc. would be hard to include because of the lack of space left over. But I will pack that sort of thing into IPKs. I'll include a better calculator in 1.3 (which should be out in the next few days -- the last major release for a long while, since I've got school starting soon).

A better Address Book would be difficult, especially if you wanted it integrated with everything else, since the Email program gets the names/etc. from the DTM database, nowhere else. If Ko/Pi gets a mail application and becomes more stable and mature I'd highly consider making the Sharp PIMs and the Ko/Pi both optional in IPKs.

I'll see about defaulting to TCP/IP over USB. Probably just a config file change somewhere simple.

Python or something on the Zaurus might be a bit hard. If anyone has any IPKs anywhere of Python or PERL or something for the Zaurus I'd be more than willing to repack them and throw them into the IPK feed.

And the websever serving up the PIM stuff would be an incredibly in-depth project, beyond both my current abilities and time constraints. It would be incredibly cool though. If anyone ever does create such a thing, again, I'd be willing to include it (again, probably as an IPK).

And as a final note, I'm only replying to this now because I simply missed this reply and the one right after it. Sorry.

[Chaos]

Have you tought of leting others to do the same? Isn't it posible to strip all exept necery setings tools, make all space enhacing triks and add freed space to internal flash.
For those 600kb you could ugrade Opera to 7.30. I don`t like the Sharp pims and use kpims. I'm not sure if this will free some space in the rom but surely will free some ram. There is a new version of clock and calculator wich will free some more ram.
BTW what kernel do you use?

I can't strip away and make it user installable because of the way it works. It'd have to be re-partitioned, or completely re-done. Sorry, but it's just not viable. As I said in my last post, once KPim/Pi gets a good mail client, and becomes more stable and mature, I'd not object to making it or the Sharp PIMs as options in IPKs.

And I'm taking Opera 7.3 under consideration if someone can tell me if there's a speed difference between it and 6.0 (as I've heard there is).

And the kernel available with it is a custom one. It's the stock Sharp kernel, except missing the cache bug workaround (that practically cut the speed in half). It technically should lower the stability a bit, but I haven't noticed anything. Of course you can use any 5600 kernel you want.

[Chaos]

I'm having a problem with my SMC 2642W WiFi card. When I try to connect, I never get past the Initializing stage. It shows up in the menubar when inserted, and the link light blinks as it's trying to connect, but it eventually fails. The card works fine with the standard Sharp ROM. Any ideas?

I honestly have no clue. I've never used a SMC card before, but please if anyone has any experience with this type of card, please speak up.

[osmedd]

Well, Opera has a 7.6 preview out that supports Gmail. Once it's released, what would be the best way to test it on my 5600 with the Watapon ROM?