OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => Sharp Zaurus => Model Specific Forums => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => C1000/3x00 General discussions => Topic started by: geeko on November 08, 2007, 02:21:23 pm
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Hello i am a new C1000 user and i would like to know which rom i should chose.
I am a newbie to linux and i would prefer not flashing the device alot, but i am willing to do what it takes to get the optimal ROM for me.
I don't want to develop apps for the C1000, or to mess around with the OS a lot. I need to do the following:
Support +1 gb SD cards
Support Wireless CF card
Webbrowser
Email
SVN
PDF reader
Video playback
Simple text editing
FTP
Other than this i don't need any functionality. So i gues i want to keep it as 'simple' as possible.
Right now i am thinking about Cacko. But does cacko have some advantages over the original sharp rom?
Also do i need a CF storage card to do the initial install, or can i do it with a standard SD card (ofcourse a SD card that has 1 gb or less storage space)
Thanks in advance for your help!
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Sounds like pdaXii13 is a good fit for you:
Support +1 gb SD cards- Yes, so far as I know
Support Wireless CF card- Yes
Webbrowser- Multiple (Firefox, links, Dillo, etc.)
Email- Multiple (Sylpheed, Mutt, Thunderbird, etc.)
SVN- Possibly installed by default, but easily added if not
PDF reader- Multiple (Xpdf, Evince?, EPDFView)
Video playback- Yes, with BVDD (best performance you'll find on a Z video player)
Simple text editing- Definately (Nano, Leafpad, Mousepad, vi, etc.)
FTP- Possibly installed by default, but easily added if not
Plus it's stable and has a large user base.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks for the help, it sounds very nice and seems like it covers my needs perfectly.
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I prefer the standard Sharp Rom that the C-1000 is shipped with.
Everything pretty much "just works" with it.
Doug
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Cacko rom, fast, stable, works.
Support +1 gb SD cards- Yes.
Support Wireless CF card- Yes
Webbrowser- Netfront, Opera ( mutch faster than firefox!!! )
Email- OMPI - KDEPim/pi
SVN- instalable
PDF reader- Qpdf
Video playback- kino2, quasar player, mplayer, even youtube...
Simple text editing- Zeditor
FTP- Yes, in console, graphics, instalable.
And you can put pdaXQTrom, from meanie, great!
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Oops, I missed the "simple as possible" part. Cacko is probably the way to go, then.
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This question seems to arise all the time. I am in your situation as well. You can check my rants from few weeks ago here (https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=24826) and here (https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=24828).
In the meantime I went through pdaXiiv13v2, pdaXrom r198, Sharp ROM and Angstrom. Without any prejudice and with all the honor distro developers deserve, my brief judgements from a C1000 user's perspective:
pdaXrom r198
+ Promissing and judged by Meanie's work on old versions I would bet on this one for the future.
- some HW problems still (sound) and not the best UI support (obviously Meanie has a lot to do and there don't seem to be enough dedicated people to work on it) and what I do mind is the flashing - needs U-boot emergency system (why?) - that makes it difficult to install and especially to remove! but of course not impossible... I am just always struggling with it...
pdaXii13v2
+ works, fairly good GUI support and with a bit of Linux knowledge you get most stuff working quickly (e.g. WiFi)
- obsolete kernel (I myself don't care that much), not optimized for C1000 (by default consumes quite a bit of NAND so you have to be carefull with installing stuff)
Angstrom
+ has a drive towards a very mature software product, seems to have a good developer's ecosystem, seems to follow a rigorous development process and the scene seems to be highly organized, as far as HW is concerned, WiFi worked the best with this distro (after some tweaking) - almost Plug-and-play.
- support (over-sensitive, unhelpful and arrogant developer(s), no good feedback when problems occur - check the Angstrom bugzilla - a lot of stuff and users are left in the dark - DISCLAIMER: THIS IS MY PERSONAL JUDGEMENT AND NO OBJECTIVE JUDGEMENT) and what made me go away from there are broken packages. There are zillions of packages but I did not manage to install a single one which resulted in a working application (LyX, mplayer, ...).
So all in all which one is the best for you? People told me that pdaXrom is more like a laptop environment, Cacko/Sharp ROM are more for PDA users and Angstrom is somewhere in between. I find this not very correct. Angstrom is nowhere in between, true that pdaXrom gives you laptop environment and Cacko/Sharp is somewhat directed towards PDA users. But Cacko does not evolve by now too much, so I miss some packages I would like to have. And the UI is also not usable like e.g. Palm OS. pdaXrom and Angstrom are useless when you turn the display into the handheld mode. And Debian is not going to be any better as work on UI is virtually zero.
From my point of view, there's a lot of energy invested into HW support and new kernels etc. That itself is laudable and great work is being done there. However for me this whole device boils down to GUI. And here Zaurus seems to be by now quite a poor gadget. Unfortunately. And it won't change unless somebody takes an opportunity, or some company doesn't come up with something portable to Z (Google phone, Ubuntu mobile?). What I mean is simple. I am not sure whether we need yet another layers of abstraction and application stacks. I think a lot can be achieved on the level of desktop and window manager. Something in direction Meanie tried to do, or Capn_Fish seems to go with the Celestial. As I said, Z is a close-to useless brick when you turn the display into the handheld mode. But enough of this elaboration...
So which distro is for you? No clue - depends on what you expect from the device. I myself have similar needs as you, plus an advanced text editing (LyX + LaTeX) and I decided for now for pdaXii13v2 and I am looking forward to see the r198. Reasons: very friendly and supportive community (just check the disucssions to see how newbies are handled), drive for configurability (exactly what I need if I want to customize the system to my own needs), by default already IMHO the nicest and at the same time reasonably working PDA-like GUI outhere (OpenBox + Matchbox with beautiful icons and working desktop) and mostly working packages. And people like khazakov and Capn_Fish who compile on request almost anything you need (probably the biggest plus - thanks guys ). r198 seems to be much faster, however there are still some quirks (crappy sound and some broken configurations). And finally, for the PDA usability, there seems to be the biggest configuration support already done for my own games with window manager.
The last advice: do some flashing in order to find out what you want... You probably won't get around it anyway .
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what the heck is SVN?
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SVN is subversion, a system for software development. People download the SVN and make changes to it. They then upload those changes to the main source, and the revision increments. It's a way to keep track of versions and for a group of developers to easily work on a project together without many of the issues of one person's code messing up another's.
From Wikipedia:
In computing, Subversion (SVN) is a version control system (VCS) initiated in 2000 by CollabNet Inc. It allows users to keep track of changes made to any type of electronic data, typically source code, web pages or design documents.
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Hi all,
I too am looking for a distro that does the same kind of things, however for me something that important is WPA
I had r198 for some time and I never got my wireless working correctly. I spent months trying every bit of advice ( thanks to you all ) but no luck.
I am sure that in time r198 will be the one to run and I will go back it.
As for now, I need all the same types of thing requested about but with WPA. I will not modify my home config to get the Z on it.
It is possible that it's just my Ambicom card. Too old. I don't really want buy a new on only to find out that it make no difference.
My first thought is going pdaXii13 as suggested but I don't know if it supports WPA.
Any thoughts would be great.
thanks
Andmann
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pdaXii13 ought to support WPA. Which card do you have? Ambicom WL-1100C? If so, you may just have to update your firmware.
https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showto...&hl=modules (https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=24233&hl=modules)
That thread has a kernel that supports firmware flashing and instructions (I think, definitely for the kernel).
A lot of people seem to be liking Debian, which supports WPA, is stable, current, etc.
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pdaXii13 ought to support WPA. Which card do you have? Ambicom WL-1100C? If so, you may just have to update your firmware.
https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showto...&hl=modules (https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=24233&hl=modules)
That thread has a kernel that supports firmware flashing and instructions (I think, definitely for the kernel).
A lot of people seem to be liking Debian, which supports WPA, is stable, current, etc.
I am just putting in pdaxii13, I'll try that for bit and see if I can update firware on my Ambicom card and get the WPA to work.
thanks again.
Andmann