Rom Discussion On Tosa, lets share our opinions Options

[malik]

hello out there,


i read about users who wanted to sell their tosa, others bought a 2nd
zaurus and again others flash frequently from rom to rom. some time ago
i also had the idea to change the zaurus model. there must be reasons for
that and i think its not the hardware aspect of this device.

the aim of this thread should be to share your thoughts and experiences
on the different roms. it can also be useful for others who want to test
a different rom. what do you like, what do you hate? what works, what doesnt?

i will start with my opinion on the different roms. some of them i used for
several months, some only for several hours. but maybe others will write more
on the roms, i only tested.

before i start, i should mention for what i use my zaurus most of the time:
reading news with opiereader, pim (kopi), latex, wikipedia with zbedic,
from time to time mp3s and ebooks...


----------------
SHARPROM
----------------

for the moment it seems to be the best choice for me. i used it for the
most of the time, but nevertheless my report is short.

installed/working applications (besides usual ones): tex/dviviewer,
usb keyboard (also usb mouse, but i dont use it), xqt/pocketworkstation,
giant icons on root

todo: maybe i will replace the default fonts and update opera

pros: stability, browser opera, wlan out of box

cons: no progress, no development --> no future ?!



--------------
PDAXROM
--------------

i used (maybe i should write tested) it for nearly 3 months with ups and downs.
in the end i had the feeling that i dont use this rom on a daily basis, i was
spending a lot of time in getting things to work. i had problems with
suspend/resume and in some cases only taking off the battery helped.

this was more than 6 months ago. now i tried 1.1 beta out and i was suprised
but in the negative. it took me 10 minutes to flash back as everything
i tried out went wrong: i started scite and dillo, minimized it,
then i recognized that the time was wrong. setting the time resulted in turning
off the backlight and killing the minimized applications?! i added a rotation
applet on the taskbar. but i was not able to rotate back. suspending confuses
me as the backlight is turned off for more than one second and then the device
does that what it should do.

all this sounds bad, but it is nothing serious. i know that a lot of tosa users
use this rom, so it has to be good. and be sure that i will give it another try,
maybe using a different wm than matchbox.

pros: great, active community and communication. very nice rom with all the
advantages of X application. the idea of running the same wm on my linux box
(kde) and my zaurus is somehow cool.
cons: see above. maybe the speed of the tosa (and the rom) is not sufficient
enough to run big applications like kde.


-------------------
OPENZAURUS
-------------------

oz was the reason getting me a linux pda instead of a pocket pc. i owned a
collie running hentges rom and everything was fine, ii was also running
sharp applications under opie with compat libs.

pros: very structured development with higher aims (i dont know if this is
a really pro in view of the users). upcoming kernel 2.6, but unfortunately
the tosa device does not play a main role for natural reasons.
ability to run a lot of applications, those of the sharprom world with opie
and compat libs and also X applications with gpe. the dual boot idea is
also very good.

cons: there are some bugs in oz 3.5.4 rc1, which hold me back on jumping on
this train, in the first place the line drawing bug, sound problems with opie,
missing keys. the bad thing in my opinion is that all the mentioned bugs are
not new and are well known from previous releases.
i dislike the feed structure of oz. net, network, networking, this confuses me,
a directory named e and a lot of ones with only one package, hundreds of
"locales". maybe it doesnt matter for those who use ipkg from the console,
but if you want to use the package manager it matters..


--------------------
GUYLHEMROM
--------------------

a kind of "one man show". i tried it in the beginning and had the feeling
that this rom was more or less a personal nand backup, a kind of snapshot.
i also tried the fast kernel thing getting me crazy as the "f" key turned
the light on and off. natural consequence: i avoided this rom for months.
now i tried rc4 and i was suprised. i like the boot screen (no confusing
warnings as before). a lot of things changed.

pros: the exact battery applet, nice fonts. the idea of getting the existing
rom more usable. guylhem used nicer fonts, why not use nicer icons?

cons: i removed a lot of applications and installed some others, but i was
not able to remove the corresponding icons or to move them between
the categories with the help of the launcher. restarting opie and rebooting
didnt changed anything except the touchscreen was not responding (maybe i
removed the wrong applications).

[nevarrie]

I am starting to play with running pdaxrom with enlightenment17.



I currently have USB networking so that I can uses x11vnc to control the 6k while it is in the cradle.

KOPI has imported my ics file so I have access to my currect calender. The lack of Pi-sync bothers me a little both as of e17 ont he z I so far find it very nice and responsive.

The screen rotate button int he ibar works great. I was not able to get matchbox to rotate the 6k(at least I coudl nto find how).

The escreenshow module does not work.

Teh battery meter shows 100, 75, 50 , 25 but also show how many minutes it believe I still have left. I am not sure how accurate it issince I have nto been timing it.

Suspend works from teh power button. Every time so far this weekend it has returned without a problem but I currently have everythign installed locally and not on a cf or sd card.

I am currently still trying to get Wifi working.

I hope to get wifi working in the next couple of days.

Just though I would put inthat info about using pdaxrom on the 6k...

[egg8178]

Nevarrie,
It would be really nice if you could share your experience in using pdaxrom on the 6k, esp the wifi part, thank you, and i understand that we can actually dual boot the pdaxrom from sd so to keep the stock in internal flash?

can someone point out the + and - of doing so?

p/s: it's really been quiet around here (6k) and i really envy all the attention others (3k, 1k) have..

I am starting to play with running pdaxrom with enlightenment17.



I currently have USB networking so that I can uses x11vnc to control the 6k while it is in the cradle. 

KOPI has imported my ics file so I have access to my currect calender.  The lack of Pi-sync bothers me a little both as of e17 ont he z I so far find it very nice and responsive. 

The screen rotate button int he ibar works great.  I was not able to get matchbox to rotate the 6k(at least I coudl nto find how).

The escreenshow module does not work.

Teh battery meter shows 100, 75, 50 , 25 but also show how many minutes it believe I still have left.  I am not sure how accurate it issince I have nto been timing it.

Suspend works from teh power button.  Every time so far this weekend it has returned without a problem but I currently have everythign installed locally and not on a cf or sd card.

I am currently still trying to get Wifi working.

I hope to get wifi working in the next couple of days.

Just though I would put inthat info about using pdaxrom on the 6k...

[enlightened_j]

e17 on Zaurus 6000 looks pretty sweet!!

I got my Zaurus back in 2004. I used OpenZaurus for about a year until one day that I decided that the orange line really annoys me and switched to PDAX rom.

I run PDAX rom as my daily rom now. I primarily uses fluxbox, Firefox, Minimo (scaled down version of FireFox) , AbiWord, mplayer, xmms, and qbedict.
Here are some of my experiences from PDAX rom.

Firefox: Takes roughly a minute to load, once loaded it works great.

Minimo: Runs great, tries to render everything so that you don't have to scroll horizontally. But its effort sometimes actually screws up the page. It's kind of buggy.

Abiword: I use it to take notes when I am reading.

Qbedict: I use it to look up words I don't know when I am reading. It's usually run in conjunction with Abiword in different "workspace" of Fluxbox.

mplayer: I used mplayer to watch re-encoded xvid movies when I need to take flights. No complains here. I also use it to play online streamed NPR.

xmms: Works great.

I pretty much use PDAXrom as a scale down version of Linux PC and NOT a pda. This factor alone makes the transition to PDAXrom worth it. The only draw back I have with PDAX rom is that there's not much development for Zaurus 6000. I personally wish I have more time to do some development on it, but just don't have time.

[eji]

e17 on Zaurus 6000 looks pretty sweet!!

[...]

I run PDAX rom as my daily rom now.

How's the overall speed of pdaxrom compared to a ROM like Sharp or OZ?

Can you play movies fullscreen using mplayer in pdaxrom, or does it suffer from the same video acceleration issues as the other ROMs?

Is there any good PIM software, or does the K/Pi suite work just as well?

What's the deal with WiFi and Bluetooth? Is the reconition of the 6000's built-in WiFi flaky? Is Bluetooth working as good as or better than the Sharp-based ROMs?

I'd really appreciate it if you could answer all those. I'm dying to ditch the Sharp ROM for something as beautiful as E17, but stability, speed and hardware integration have kept me from pdaxrom so far.

[enlightened_j]

How's the overall speed of pdaxrom compared to a ROM like Sharp or OZ?

Can you play movies fullscreen using mplayer in pdaxrom, or does it suffer from the same video acceleration issues as the other ROMs?

Is there any good PIM software, or does the K/Pi suite work just as well?

What's the deal with WiFi and Bluetooth? Is the reconition of the 6000's built-in WiFi flaky? Is Bluetooth working as good as or better than the Sharp-based ROMs?

I'd really appreciate it if you could answer all those. I'm dying to ditch the Sharp ROM for something as beautiful as E17, but stability, speed and hardware integration have kept me from pdaxrom so far.

I am no sure what was the acceleration issues in other ROMS. My experience with Open Zaurus and PDAX ROM is that if a movie is re-encoded to 320x240 with 15 fps, it can be play full screen without dropping any frame and audio/video out of sync. There is a program I found in OESF forum that I use to re-encode my XVID movies for Zaurus. I can lookup the name of program later tonight when I get home.

I have the PIM software installed, but never really used it much. So I can't really help you on that.

Wifi works ok, but I use a script instead of the GUI. I couldn't get the Wifi GUI to work. My Zaurus is without Bluetooth; can't give you any pointer on that.

I forget to mention few other programs I use frequently on PDAX rom in my last post:

GAIM: I consistently log onto msn and yahoo messenger to take a look on who's online. Witout an external keyboard, it's hard to carry out conversations on Zaurus.

KPHONE: I use KPHONE to dial toll free number for internation calling cards during the day when my cell phone minutes are low. Some phone card does not recognize the DTMF send by KPHONE, overall experience is still positive though. Voice call through SIP woks decently well.

xvncview and server: I find xvncviewer less useful when connect to a Windows vnc server, but it works well with Linux vnc server if you set the resolution usable for Zaurus. xvnc server works pretty well. I use it pretty often when I am at home on my real computer.

xpdf: I rarely use it unless, but the times I used it to read pdf e-books, it works fine.

Here is my conclusion for PDAX rom:

I think it's a pretty decent ROM. It requires some tweaking and getting use to when first used. I think the first thing you need to do AFTER installing PDAX rom is to get the libstdc++ library. I am not sure if it's the case anymore.

I love the customisibility and versatility it gives me at the expense of some learning curve. If you have some experience with desktop Linux I would highly recommend giving PDAX rom a try if and only if you have some free time.

[trichmon]

How's the overall speed of pdaxrom compared to a ROM like Sharp or OZ?

Can you play movies fullscreen using mplayer in pdaxrom, or does it suffer from the same video acceleration issues as the other ROMs?

Is there any good PIM software, or does the K/Pi suite work just as well?

What's the deal with WiFi and Bluetooth? Is the reconition of the 6000's built-in WiFi flaky? Is Bluetooth working as good as or better than the Sharp-based ROMs?

I'd really appreciate it if you could answer all those. I'm dying to ditch the Sharp ROM for something as beautiful as E17, but stability, speed and hardware integration have kept me from pdaxrom so far.

I am no sure what was the acceleration issues in other ROMS. My experience with Open Zaurus and PDAX ROM is that if a movie is re-encoded to 320x240 with 15 fps, it can be play full screen without dropping any frame and audio/video out of sync. There is a program I found in OESF forum that I use to re-encode my XVID movies for Zaurus. I can lookup the name of program later tonight when I get home.

I have the PIM software installed, but never really used it much. So I can't really help you on that.

Wifi works ok, but I use a script instead of the GUI. I couldn't get the Wifi GUI to work. My Zaurus is without Bluetooth; can't give you any pointer on that.

I forget to mention few other programs I use frequently on PDAX rom in my last post:

GAIM: I consistently log onto msn and yahoo messenger to take a look on who's online. Witout an external keyboard, it's hard to carry out conversations on Zaurus.

KPHONE: I use KPHONE to dial toll free number for internation calling cards during the day when my cell phone minutes are low. Some phone card does not recognize the DTMF send by KPHONE, overall experience is still positive though. Voice call through SIP woks decently well.

xvncview and server: I find xvncviewer less useful when connect to a Windows vnc server, but it works well with Linux vnc server if you set the resolution usable for Zaurus. xvnc server works pretty well. I use it pretty often when I am at home on my real computer.

xpdf: I rarely use it unless, but the times I used it to read pdf e-books, it works fine.

Here is my conclusion for PDAX rom:

I think it's a pretty decent ROM. It requires some tweaking and getting use to when first used. I think the first thing you need to do AFTER installing PDAX rom is to get the libstdc++ library. I am not sure if it's the case anymore.

I love the customisibility and versatility it gives me at the expense of some learning curve. If you have some experience with desktop Linux I would highly recommend giving PDAX rom a try if and only if you have some free time.

I see you mentioned watching video on your 6000 in pdaxrom. Would you mind explaining your setup. I have done that with success on the sharp rom but I cant seem to get much to work on the pdaxrom side.

Thanks
Todd