OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => Sharp Zaurus => Model Specific Forums => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => 6000 - Tosa => Topic started by: speculatrix on January 05, 2006, 04:42:31 pm
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Phew! What a lot of options! I wanted to try and cover most variations of owning or not, along with broken, modified and virgin.
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you won't have too many not-wannabe 6000 members voting with that topic.
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you won't have too many not-wannabe 6000 members voting with that topic.
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fair enough, I tweaked the sub-title a bit.
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What about "I have a 6000 and am going to sell it 'cos I prefer my 860"?
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Woo woo! Looks like I got the first modified vote!!!
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What about "I have a 6000 and am going to sell it 'cos I prefer my 860"?
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I think it's covered, now you've explained here why.
Me, I'm hanging on to mine for now: DrWowe's done a cacko6000, and if we get accelerated video, and bluetooth implant, and more ram/rom, then I think it beats the 3100.
== d'oh edit ==
Put yourself down as a "used to have".. I forgot about people in the process of selling their 6000.
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I am surprised there are so few of us... or so few that are willing to stand up and be counted. Or is that many of we 6000 owners like to really party and some are still too hungover from New Years to be able to read the forum?
It'd be interesting to run the same poll for each of the other models, dontchathink?
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I have a 6000 and a new 3100. I find I don't prefer the 3100 nearly as much as I had expected. The iwmmx stuff is nice and the big keyboard and landscape screen are too.
The bigger, more saturated 6k screen is a big plus... and I had gotten used to the 6k keyboard layout.... etc. We all know the differences. I love my 6000 (though my wife uses it a lot now too) and definitely have no plans to part with it.
edit: Cacko for 6k??? Where??!!!
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Cacko 6000: I've been running it on my 6000 and it's been working pretty great for several days but there are some things that I still need to fix up before releasing a test version publicly.
I started with Cacko 7x0 rootfs, added Guylhem fast kernel, and replaced and modified various files, fixing up things for the keyboard layout and portrait mode and in general trying to make everything work seamlessly on the 6000.
I'm going to call it the CG-6000 ROM to acknowledge Cacko and Guylhem, plus when I look at the upper left corner I know it's the right name. See my post in another thread, and stay tuned for more...
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I too am shocked at how few there are. I would be interested why anyone has given up with the 6000, 3 votes that way (at the moment). I suppose my 6000 will be one of them as I bought it off eBay from a board member but some reasons for people selling would be good.
I am completely stuck as to whether or not to sell it. I find that I don't use the wireless as often as I thought and the size of it is just too much. It is difficult to get out of my pocket, for example at airport X ray machines. The 860 I bought is about as big as you can go and still forget you are carrying it.
The 6000 runs PdaXrom really well. I tried it on the 860 but it wasn't as smooth though I probably didn't take as much time over setting it up and do intend to go back to it on the 860 when time permits, I am currently running Cacko and do find it real easy and totally stable though I do prefer the more normal X interface offered by PdaXrom.
Battery life on both is fine i.e. the battery lasts longer than I need it to on both machines. I never got the 6000 to play movies but the 860 plays them really well, apart from the controls, keeping an eye on the accelerated display thread as it may affect my decision to sell.
I find little difference in the screens though most people reckon the 6000 to be better I find the fonts on Cacko a bit easier than the fonts on PdaXrom though I couldn't say what it was that made it that way.
I miss the USB host facility of the 6000 so I am beginning to see that I will, at some stage go for one of the later ones, not sure which yet as I am not exactly sure which model has what. Is there a site with technical spec listed where a comparison can be made easily. I would hate to buy a 3100 and find it bigger than the 860 in such a way that it just crossed over the "too big" line.
As a group of PDA owners we are pretty damn lucky to be so spoilt for choice on what we want the device to do. It makes choosing which way to go pretty difficult but hobbies are supposed to consume time aren't they?
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that was indeed a disappointment with my 3100:
It is not quite as long as the 6k.. but thicker and as heavy-- not a substantial improvement in pocketability, except what is gained by the clamshell form over the rather annoying but indispensible 6k screen shield.
Movies play acceptably well in mplayer on my 6k, though I confess I'm more likely to watch something like southpark than I am to watch a piece of serious cinemetography on my pda For me the pda game and video apps get used to kill time in waiting rooms or on public transport..etc. Generally that means a few minutes to a half hour, not a couple hours for movie watching.
I'm also surprised at the sale/tades of 6000s, especially given the 6ks competitiveness with the 3100 (given a microdrive). I guess all the talk of clamshell godness gets persuasive.
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I'm also surprised at the sale/tades of 6000s, especially given the 6ks competitiveness with the 3100 (given a microdrive). I guess all the talk of clamshell godness gets persuasive.
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I don't think it's a problem. Every sale means someone else gets one.
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i read this thread via an internet connection with my handy/infrared,
its slow but i have some free minutes (internet by call). on the
other hand i am writing this text with an external keyboard attached
to the tosa via a mini usb cable and maybe i will post it tommorow
via the built in wlan at work.
who cares? what i want to say with the above: the hardware seems
not to be the problem on this device, a lot of things work and i
really dont care about the stuff which doesnt, to be more precise:
video speed: sure, more speed would be nice, but in general i agree
with adf, i dont want to watch movies or whatever on such a small
screen for hours. i tried streaming some news channel and watching
it in the train, its straining for my eyes..
keyboard: i had a collie before. a friend of mine has an akita. if you have
a table or something like that a clamshell model seems to be the better
choice, but in that case i use an external keyboard and i think that many
clamshell owners also do as the built in keyboards can not be compared
with a desktop keyboard or whatever.
built in microdrive: this would also be nice. i have a question to those
who have one. are there any problems with a microdrive while transporting
the zaurus? or is there a kind of shock proof? i use my tosa for about one
year without a case, its very rugged and i love this aspect. meanwhile
i choose clothes considering the size of my zaurus;-)
i am quite confident with the hardware as there is no alternative zaurus
yet. an all in one device with built in wifi, bluetooth, microdrive, more ram
and internal flash, faster cpu, kernel 2.6 out of box and a built in toaster
would change my mind;-)
looking on the software/rom development side of the tosa makes me a
little bit nervous. i doubt that the tosa is the right choice...
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I got my 6000L a more than a year ago as something to play with. It's worked fairly well for the most part. Still I need to get better at setting up drivers to mount USB devices.
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looking on the software/rom development side of the tosa makes me a
little bit nervous. i doubt that the tosa is the right choice...
Good post, I agree with most of what you said, but I don't agree with this. pdaXrom and OpenZaurus buth work great with the same features as clamshekks. That just leaves Cacko as the other "major" ROM, and I'm working on that now. Cacko is so close to the Sharp ROM that it hasn't been that hard, I've mostky just been replacing various files with their equivalents from the Sharp 6000 ROM.
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I don't have the need to modify my 6000 because it isn't my primary pda. It is already great for what I use it for, which is my "instant on" web machine. It is constantly within my home's wifi range. The only thing I would like to improve is the usb keyboard layout. The guylhem rom is supposed to fix that, but I'm unsure of its stability. If drwowe's cg rom addresses this, then that will complete my needs for the 6000.
As far as keyboards go, I prefer the 760's, the 3100's, the 6000's and then the 5500's last. The 760 is just missing the Dpad, but I don't play games as much and so the directional keys are fine enough. The 6000 and 5500 just don't cut it mainly because I hate hitting the fn key to input numbers.
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looking on the software/rom development side of the tosa makes me a
little bit nervous. i doubt that the tosa is the right choice...
Good post, I agree with most of what you said, but I don't agree with this. pdaXrom and OpenZaurus buth work great with the same features as clamshekks. That just leaves Cacko as the other "major" ROM, and I'm working on that now. Cacko is so close to the Sharp ROM that it hasn't been that hard, I've mostky just been replacing various files with their equivalents from the Sharp 6000 ROM.
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to answer in a direct way: i think that the most developers prefer the clamshell devices
and maybe there are too few tosa users. correct me, if this is not so.
concerning the cg rom: this could be a very good alternative on the tosa.
malik
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limited experience with roms. The only one I used is the sharp rom. I tried fast kernels before but the crippled bluetooth is the deal breaker for me. Stability is what I wanted so far. The programs that I used on daily basis are
*Opera, QuackNews (RSS), Gaim
*KO/Pi, KA/Pi, KP/Pi (aka, Kphone.) with IPKall
*FBReader, OpieReader, QPDF2, Kino2
occasionally I use debian to accomplish the aboves.
My life style is not on the go for now and probably will not be for a while, so sometimes I got an itchy feeling to sell my 6K. But I mananged to crush such evil idea everytime. I'm waitting for something that can upgrade 6K in all aspects. Btw, I've only dabbled with 5500 and 5600 before, but never used any clamshell.
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I've got a 6000L and have had it for over a year. (Sorry, I only just voted!) I was disappointed with the Z in general at first on account of the middling software (including the half-finished or abandoned projects, perpetual bugs affecting usability, and squabbling between rival development teams), and I've had mixed feelings ever since, but overall I've been pleased with the hardware features offered by the 6000 in comparison to the clamshells -- even though from a software standpoint it seems like development for the c'shells is always six decades ahead of the 6000.
Out of all the PDAs currently on offer, what's better than the 6000? Very few. The new T-Mobile MDA IV looks pretty cool, and I think I'd swap it for my 6000 if some lunatic offered me the chance. But Bluetooth and WiFi are, I'm told, even more flaky on the Windows Mobile OS, so I'm really not worried that the grass is greener. I'm still waiting for Apple to release a handheld that's stylish and functional. And waiting. And waiting.
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I also wanted to add a quick software list that endears my 6000 to me:
TextMaker
KeroPlayer (for podcasts; has trouble with XML feeds)
dmBlogger (RSS)
Opera 7.55
zPlayer (mplayer frontend; more rugged than Kino2)
QPDF2
ZBEDic (with the wonderful German verb conjugation module)
ZeeCookbook
KDE PIM Suite (including KPhone and PWM/Pi)
GAIM (one of many now-abandoned projects; Jabber and Yahoo! support is crap)
fbVNC Server and VNC Viewer
Kismet
zKnights (Java chess app)
U-Bahn Navigator (another abandoned project)
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Well, I've got a 6000 but I don't spend much time in the 6000 forums as my 3100 is my "daily driver" Z. I picked up the 6000 because I wanted a unit that could do wi-fi, serial, and use the Z camera card simultaneously - because I'm going to build a robot out of it
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The new T-Mobile MDA IV looks pretty cool, and I think I'd swap it for my 6000 if some lunatic offered me the chance. But Bluetooth and WiFi are, I'm told, even more flaky on the Windows Mobile OS, so I'm really not worried that the grass is greener. I'm still waiting for Apple to release a handheld that's stylish and functional. And waiting. And waiting.
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I followed the blog on pda247.com and it seemed that the two admins on the new site who the HTC universal were initially thrilled with it... but quickly became jaded, one selling it within weeks. They had to reboot them several times a day to recover lost leaked memory or crashes etc. Battery life wasn't too bad, surprisingly. So, unless a linux port comes along, my next PDA will be a 3100 if I decide to sell my 860 and 6000.
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I've had my SL-6000L for about 9 months now. I'm still running the stock Sharp ROM, stock kernel. I also have the expansion sled, and a Socket CF Bluetooth adapter (Rev. G). I purchased it used from eBay (though from the condition it arrived in it hardly appeared used at all). It replaced my battery-murdering Palm VIIx as my primary handheld.
Things I love about it compared to other Zaurii:
* Portrait orientation enables one-handed operation of things like e-book readers, so I can sip a tasty beverage with the other hand while I read.
* USB host controller makes using USB flash storage drives and USB external keyboards easy.
* Built-in WiFi used frequently.
* Fits nicely in my eHolster (http://www.eholster.com/), though it makes me look like a bigger dork.
* Groovy expansion sled doubles the battery life, the serial ports, and the CF capacity, and still (barely) fits in my eHolster.
Things that irritate me about it:
* Unwatchably slow video playback at all bitrates and resolutions.
* Lag in support of Zaurus open-source developer community and in accessory market compared to clamshell models.
* Screen cover is annoying to deal with and scratches too easily to be useful - it might as well be opaque.
* No integrated Bluetooth (the 6000W was impossible to find in the US when I bought my L).
* Built-in WiFi seems to have shorter range than my friend's C860 with the Socket low-power CF card (i.e., he can get signal in places I can't).
* Stock Sharp kernel doesn't support the version of BlueZ that supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile (it requires kernel > 2.6), so none of those nifty Bluetooth stereo audio headphones will work.
* Lack of Java applet support from Sharp/Opera for the Zaurus version of the browser.
I like my 6k and have no plans to get rid of it. However, if I were making a fresh buying decision today, I would save up and get a C3100 instead, mainly due to the lag in developer support for the 6000 and the larger flash size of the C3100 (plus the built-in drive). I don't feel confident enough with a soldering iron to attempt to do any hardware hacks on this expensive a piece of gear.
This thread is the first I heard about Cacko6000 - I may look into switching to that to see if it helps my video problem. I may also try out pdaXrom and OZ one of these days.
Cheers!
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Things that irritate me about it:
* Unwatchably slow video playback at all bitrates and resolutions.
* Lag in support of Zaurus open-source developer community and in accessory market compared to clamshell models.
* Screen cover is annoying to deal with and scratches too easily to be useful - it might as well be opaque.
* No integrated Bluetooth (the 6000W was impossible to find in the US when I bought my L).
* Built-in WiFi seems to have shorter range than my friend's C860 with the Socket low-power CF card (i.e., he can get signal in places I can't).
* Stock Sharp kernel doesn't support the version of BlueZ that supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile (it requires kernel > 2.6), so none of those nifty Bluetooth stereo audio headphones will work.
* Lack of Java applet support from Sharp/Opera for the Zaurus version of the browser.
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Hear, hear.
Video settings can be tweaked (see my blog post [a href=\"http://charlatan.blogspot.com/2005/10/my-own-ipod-killer.html]here[/url]) to play better on the 6000. But I'm still a bit miffed that my wife can watch Simpsons videos on her 5th gen. iPod with smoother playback and better quality than I can watch them on this mammoth mini-PC called the 6000. Screw Sharp for not giving devs access to the accelerated video code.
Would have loved to own the 6000W with built-in Bluetooth. Am always eyeing BT CF cards on eBay -- the catch is that I have to find one cheap enough that it doesn't matter if it doesn't work.
One thing that does please me is the actual size of the 6000, or just how pocket-sized it is even though it looks so chunky. No eHolster necessary.
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Things that irritate me about it:
* Unwatchably slow video playback at all bitrates and resolutions.
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Video settings can be tweaked (see my blog post [a href=\"http://charlatan.blogspot.com/2005/10/my-own-ipod-killer.html]here[/url]) to play better on the 6000. But I'm still a bit miffed that my wife can watch Simpsons videos on her 5th gen. iPod with smoother playback and better quality than I can watch them on this mammoth mini-PC called the 6000. Screw Sharp for not giving devs access to the accelerated video code.
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As I had a chunk of time this weekend. I'm also extensively testing the video capability on 6K. Surprisingly, even without hardware accelerated video, the stock 6k can play something like 560x292 @ 12fps (~500mb movie) smoothly (except for very fast moving scenes or key-frame transition) for > 1.5hrs continuously with the sled on.
I am trying to find an optimum setting for movie playback (comics should have even better perfomance if encoded accordingly) on 6k. To put it ahead 1) file size is not a problem for me and 2) I'm using xvid codec with AVI container. I'm also trying to settle on an easy set-up to allow me re-encoding the desktop quality AVI movies to cope with the promises for my future handhelds. IMHO, the latter is almost as important as the former, cause I don't want to waste hundreds of giga in video source and spend another 5hours re-encoding from scratch. So all the AVI I played on 6K is not directly from source, but from desktop quality previously encoded AVI.
I learned the basics about Gordian Knot just last week. So correct me if I'm wrong. I think the general question of video on 6k is wondering whether the choppy playback is due to insufficient processing power (again whether CPU decoding efficiency or video output bandwith) or insufficient bitrates (a highly over-rated benchmarker) passing through. So far something I've observed: 2 pass encoding definitely worth it (don't be lazy), feel free to turn on B-frame options, even 12fps is an overkill for something like 480x320 (turn off drop frame to see the video lagging behind the audio), audio (mp3) encoding parameters hardly makes any difference in terms of performance, a fairly wide range of bitrate don't affect video performance much. I'll post more in the sticky video post later.
What I inferred from the info about is that 6K has plenty of CPU power to decode the xvid compressed video and lame encoded mp3, even with the advanced options turned on. The bottle neck right now is the video card or memory (probably nothing new at all). So the guideline for me is not to stress the video card on 6k. So don't encode @ 320x240 then scale to screen! It's much better encode to a resolution you want (I don't recommend 640x480, we're not there yet) and play the native video resolution on 6k. I also rotate the screen in the encoding step as eji did. Finally I won't hesitate to just pass the previously encoded high quality audio stream through if file size is not a problem for you.
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hello
You should post the mencoder script and a sample avi.
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I don't have the need to modify my 6000 because it isn't my primary pda. It is already great for what I use it for, which is my "instant on" web machine. It is constantly within my home's wifi range. The only thing I would like to improve is the usb keyboard layout. The guylhem rom is supposed to fix that, but I'm unsure of its stability. If drwowe's cg rom addresses this, then that will complete my needs for the 6000.
As far as keyboards go, I prefer the 760's, the 3100's, the 6000's and then the 5500's last. The 760 is just missing the Dpad, but I don't play games as much and so the directional keys are fine enough. The 6000 and 5500 just don't cut it mainly because I hate hitting the fn key to input numbers.
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See my keyboard post at the end of the keyboard thread in the 6000 hardware forum. Building on what was already posted, I am using keyhelper with my own xml mapping file (url in my post) and I have no keyboard problems when using usb keyboards. I switch back and forth between the mapping for the built in keyboard and the usb keyboard with a simple command line entry also documented in my post.