OESF Portables Forum
Model Specific Forums => Sharp Zaurus => Zaurus - pdaXrom => Topic started by: zaphod on December 23, 2003, 12:21:45 pm
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I just put it on a 128MB SD card in my C750 for fun and was able to update it using apt-get quite easily. (Updating was a snap, unlike ROM-flashing, but you really need a 256MB SD card. I had to do a lot pruning to make stuff fit.) Currently I\'m running icewm with dfm as the file manager. (I\'m considering switching to xfm, since dfm is more filemanager than I need on a PDA.) Transparent aterm works fine, although you can always make it non-transparent. But dosbox works! It is a little slow, though. Ultima 4 feels like its running on a ~20Mhz 386. Space invaders (Atari 2600) works pefectly on stella . Still looking for a lightweight browser, although dillo is almost good enough. links -g is a little too slow but has enough features to be my main browser. Sylpheed works just like on the X11ROM. I managed to get my pockettop keyboard to work, but using it is awkward, thanks to the IR port being on the back of the unit. Overall, I would say things (GUI) feel a little bit faster than on the X11 ROM. But the main thing is that there are loads of programs to choose from. And I can always drop out of X11 and go back to qtopia. So far, I have observed none of the power management flakiness(freeze on suspend/resume) which made pocket workstation unusable on the SL5000.
On the downside, much of this is not GUI-configurable, but using VNC from a PC makes rc file editing tolerable.
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zaurus.spy.org/screenshots/scottyelich
It took me a long time (over two days, not 48 hours, just sleep, etc)... to get the zdebian to SD. I couldn\'t untar onto the SD, as the SD would go unstable and offline.
I had to rsync, crash, reboot, fsck, reboot, repeat .. untl I had all the files on the SD. Even now, I can\'t always apt-get .. as the SD will go offline!
The advantage of the zdebian on SD was that I could take the sd from my 700 and put it in my 760 ... and vice-versa... that is, I could have a system on SD, in a sense.
However, the X11 ROM (with gcc3) gives me all that I need... now.
I don\'t get apt-get -- but would there be a way to run a \"chroot\"ed apt-get and a chroot run to get the same behaviour under X11/CACKO/OZ/TKC?
With all the stuff that\'s compiled and prepared in .debs, this could be a big win.
Yes, I know that zdebian is basically just this, but even if we had to symlink our way to
compatibility (to be able to install .debs), this would be worth it.
Think about it, freebsd runs linux code.... openbsd runs solaris code (??) ... there should be a way to run .debs in some sort of compat (libs + dir tree) etc.
Scott
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Which SD card are you using and which model Zaurus+ROM? I\'ve had huge problems with the SD filesystem going dead and power management hangs on the SL5000D, but using the C750, cacko 1.18, and a cheap ($25.00) \"Impact\" brand (rebadged Lexar) SD 128MB card, I have had no problems at all. I can\'t believe how well things are working and I have really been beating on the SD card, uninstalling huge packages like all of ghostscript and related utilities to make room for nethack and other important stuff. i\'ve been using apt-get install lots and not a single crash. I was thinking about trying a bigger SD card, but i can\'t yet find one cheap enough.
I know what you mean about apt-get. It is soooo convenient compared to the never ending package hell of all the ROMs. It would be great if ROMs could be done away with altogether at least on the C7X0 models. Why all this fuss with partitiioning? Is it impossible to just make the whole internal storage one bootable r/w filesystem and install debian ARM on it? (I bet there is some stupid sharp reason that makes this impossible, otherwise the clever folks at cacko would have already done it.)
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Exactly. Debian arm compatible image/rom... where apt-get just works.
It\'s like, focus on where the best return is -- and forget about \"pda\" funcationality.
Moving to X has already signalled that pda funcationality isn\'t the real goal (ie: where
are the X11 pims?) ...
I don\'t see space as an issue when you can get 512mb sd... and larger CF.
The only drawback is that we can\'t get a huge CF *and* wifi at the same time.
Scott
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I\'ve posted some screenshots of some neat stuff you can do with Debian on a 256MB SD card. Here\'s a link to them:
http://zaurusfun.4t.com/photo.html (http://zaurusfun.4t.com/photo.html)
Sorry about the crappy layout, but it\'s a free web hosting site. I also put up some hopefully easy to follow instructions for getting Debian working on a C7XX here:
http://zaurusfun.4t.com/index.html (http://zaurusfun.4t.com/index.html)
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very nice.
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zaphod
That looks good!
I\'ve tried the instructions on Klaus\'s website for my 5500 but could not get it up and running. If I use his crow+deb-rom with the big.tgz file will your instructions work on 5500?
Greg
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See Klaus\' readme here:
http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-...bian-README.txt (http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-debian-README.txt)
I used this file
http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-...n-big-v0.15.tgz (http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-debian-big-v0.15.tgz)
because I wanted to keep my cacko 1.18 ROM. It wasn\'t broke so I was not going to fix it.
I\'m not sure what the deal is with this file
http://pocketworkstation.org/files/crow+de...om-20030303.zip (http://pocketworkstation.org/files/crow+deb-rom-20030303.zip)
Just out of curiousity, what troubles were you having?
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Zaphod, vi repeatedly froze while trying to edit /mnt/card/debroot/usr/local/bin/zvncserver on my C760.
I decided to edit the file in QTopia, so I \"echoed q\" and rebooted... to find my touchscreen inoperative.
I wasn\'t knowledgeable or lucky enough to figure out a fix for the touchscreen, or patient enough to ask and wait, so I reflashed Cacko 1.18. The touchscreen works again, so I\'ll give PocketWorkstation another try tomorrow.
Those instructions are excellent. Thanks!
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Hello,
i have tryed the the instriction on http://zaurusfun.4t.com/index.html (http://zaurusfun.4t.com/index.html) i use a C760 . For me it is not possible to use, allways the Fbvnc crashes when i touch the screen to calibrate.
Than i use the actuell Fbvnc http://www.pocketworkstation.org/files/fbv...bvnc-arm-1.4.gz (http://www.pocketworkstation.org/files/fbvnc-arm-1.4.gz) unpack and move to /mnt/card/debroot/usr/local/bin/fbvnc
than it works for me.
LinuxDoc
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sriley:
Sorry things got screwed up bad enough that you had to reflash. Did you try a killall S99zdebian before starting qtopia? About the vi thing, yes it doesn\'t work too well at the zaurus console, although I\'ve never actually had to reboot to get out of it. I\'ll mention this problem in what I fear will be a rapidly growning list of caveats on the howto page.
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Sorry things got screwed up bad enough that you had to reflash.
No problem, I\'m a flash-a-ROM-aholic. I try to check every new release of every ROM out, but I always go back to my primary ROM for work use, etc.
Did you try a killall S99zdebian before starting qtopia?
No. I stopped thinking and started flashing. Oops. :oops:
About the vi thing, yes it doesn\'t work too well at the zaurus console, although I\'ve never actually had to reboot to get out of it. I\'ll mention this problem in what I fear will be a rapidly growning list of caveats on the howto page.
Could the file be edited from QTopia prior to running the post install script, or does the script create or modify that file? I guess I\'ll check this evening, as I intend to reformat my 256 SD card and walk through the entire process again.
--sriley
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While QTopia is a capable, stylus-free environment for me at my workplace, I\'d like to have X11 for use when I\'m not running from workstation to workstation.
Ideally, for me, I\'d be able to open a VNC client window within QTopia and connect to a VNC server on the same C760 running an X11 distro as complete as PocketWorkstation. If I had to go, I could simply minimize the VNC client and use QTopia without rebooting.
Any ideas?
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zaphod
I now have a dual boot Z!
I had to use the crow+deb-rom with the very slow extraction from CF card to SD card install on my Zaurus (about 45 min.) of the zaurus-debian-big-tgz
My problem was extraction on my desktop with Mandrake Linux, very fast but would not work properly after install.
A clean install on a 128mb Lexar SD card leaves 3296kb (close, but it works)!
Now I need a larger SD card and maybe a C-series to put it in (hehehe)
Thanks for your help
Greg
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sriley:
postinst.sh does clobber the zvncserver script so either make another copy before running postinst.sh, or change postinst.sh to skip that file.
I think I was doing just what you describe with keypebble last spring with my SL5000. but there just wasn\'t enough RAM.
I have not yet played having Xvnc and Qtopia running at the same time but after all the suspend/wake hangs I got on my SL5000, I\'m still amazed when the thing wakes up
btw, I\'ve been exploring debian apps and beware abiword, it\'s a really old 1.0.X version and it\'s totally unstable. (This is in the STABLE feed; there doesn\'t seem to be an abiword in TESTING.) However, if you only want to edit RTF files, Ted and xpw (from SIAG office) are pretty lightweight.
If you manage to get things going, post what cool apps/games you discover. Debian is having problems lately and their nice online package descriptions seem to be broken. So I\'ve been wracking my brain trying to remeber what apps worked well back when 300-400MHz machines were fast. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that Office apps were, and arguably still are, a lost cause on linux. I suppose Word Perfect 5 would probably run on dosbox...
As for PIM apps, well I think there\'s an ARM X11 version of xcopilot someplace.....
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This line on the instruction page: \"One C860 user reported that the included /usr/local/bin/fbvnc would not start for him and that he needed to download this file\"
Should say: \"C760 user\".