So Which Rom Should I Use For 3200? Options

[RLamb]

Hi all,

Have been reading this forum heavily since I have got my Zaurus a month or so ago and finally figured out how to get validated today (thanks again admin for the fast response!) so heres my first post

So university is almost finished, and I'm looking forward to getting properly into using the Z now my work/revision will be done. Anyways I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the ROMs available; I have read lots of posts on this forum and gone to the ROM sites but still don't know which ROM to install and what will suit me best.

I would really appreciate if anyone could give me a quick rundown or summary of what each ROM is in a nutshell, what it is good/bad for, and ideally peoples experiences with them as well?

To put my needs into context I am starting a web development company with my friend after university so reliability is important, as is the ability to sync data between machines and ideally use a fully fledged browser like firefox if possible. I'm not very linux savvy but I have been using Fedora a bit in university, and have ubuntu feisty fawn as my primary OS now but I'm still right at the beginning of my linux adventure. The linux side of the Zaurus was partly why I bought it though so I am willing to learn!

Sorry for the length of the post but I really would appreciate any and all suggestions for how I can make the most out of my Zaurus with a new ROM. The default is OK but I don't like the contact manager issues with English alphabet, as well as the missing text in some menus/configuration that should be in Japanese it gets very confusing. Also just excited about trying something new!

Thanks in advance to any and all who contribute.

Richard.

[speculatrix]

here's my "devil's dictionary" guide to ROM distros

Sharp ROM - for those who are too scared to flash
Cacko - for those too scared to flash more than once
pdaXrom - for people who love flashing as often as possible
OZ - for people who love flashing, don't like documentation, don't mind being beta testers, and don't want a web browser
Angstrom - for people who love flashing, don't want ANY documentation, love being alpha testers, and don't need any particular software at all

[ShiroiKuma]

Sharp ROM - for those who are too scared to flash
Cacko - for those too scared to flash more than once
pdaXrom - for people who love flashing as often as possible
OZ  - for people who love flashing, don't like documentation, don't mind being beta testers, and don't want a web browser
Angstrom  - for people who love flashing, don't want ANY documentation, love being alpha testers, and don't need any particular software at all

I don't agree with this, I think actually for the usage mentioned here Angstrom is much better.

If you're ready to tinker with Pdaxrom and have used Linux, then Angstrom requires much less tinkering than Pdaxrom, gives you a 2.6 kernel, native 4.2 GCC, and total stability, compared with Pdaxrom's not so stable environment. There's tons of packages and native compilation works, just like in debian.

I've used both, and would not got back to Pdaxrom, no matter what. Though Angstrom is in the dev phase still, it's much better, and it's faster than Pdaxrom, or at least that's my subjective feel based on usage experience.

[speculatrix]

Sharp ROM - for those who are too scared to flash

I don't agree with this, I think actually for the usage mentioned here Angstrom is much better.

oh dear, sorry, but I think you took my comments as being serious! I am currently running OZ, having tried Angstrom (but the key packages I wanted to use simply segfaulted) and will probably go back to Angstrom once these issues are sorted.

[ShiroiKuma]

Yeah, guess I didn't realize that was humor

Anyhow, I'm surprised to see you using OZ over Angstrom, as the only thing that segfaults for me is Firefox and Minimo, and these bothe in OZ and Angstrom, so have seen no diff in this. Rather actually many packages work in Angstrom that didn't for me in OZ...

This being due to the fact that with a 2.6 kernel I've been able to compile anything that was missing. The only irritating bit is the firefox...

[speculatrix]

Anyhow, I'm surprised to see you using OZ over Angstrom, as the only thing that segfaults for me is Firefox and Minimo, and these bothe in OZ and Angstrom, so have seen no diff in this. Rather actually

only because I am retracing previous work to get TomTomGO software to run, which I know definitively is possible on OZ, whereas its untried on A.. once I have it working I will try it on A.