OESF Portables Forum

General Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: zaurusbs on December 31, 2003, 04:10:27 pm

Title: any danger in flashing ROM?
Post by: zaurusbs on December 31, 2003, 04:10:27 pm

Hi all,
So I\'m a newbie to the Zaurus (5600) and I was wondering if there were any dangers in (a) using a ROM other than the Sharp ROM and/or ( upgrading the ROM that came pre-installed to the current version available. Is there a chance of ending up with a dead device?

Title: any danger in flashing ROM?
Post by: brewin on December 31, 2003, 04:14:21 pm

It\'s pretty safe. I\'ve actually managed to flash my 5500 with the battery upside down and it still works. Although I don\'t advise doing that.

Title: any danger in flashing ROM?
Post by: tumnus on December 31, 2003, 05:44:03 pm

The flash procedure for the 5600 is almost fool proof. I think Sharp learned from the mistakes they made with the 5500.

Since you are new to the Zaurus I would recommend sticking to the Sharp ROM or a ROM based on the sharp ROM, like the tkcROM.

Title: any danger in flashing ROM?
Post by: jerric on January 01, 2004, 04:49:22 am

Quote

The flash procedure for the 5600 is almost fool proof. I think Sharp learned from the mistakes they made with the 5500.

Since you are new to the Zaurus I would recommend sticking to the Sharp ROM or a ROM based on the sharp ROM, like the tkcROM.

flashed my sl5500 with OZ ,flash normally, both lights on for few minutes, tried several zImage. Followed exact OZ flashing proc., all the same result( when booting, just the sharp logo and cursor lower right corner). Any thoughts or suggestion??
 Got back to default sharp rom, OK! But I want to try other ROM.

Title: any danger in flashing ROM?
Post by: jerric on January 01, 2004, 04:53:04 am

Info on tckVideo from the company, is it worth paying for. Or any video player free and do Full screen!  or can play Real??

Title: any danger in flashing ROM?
Post by: brewin on January 01, 2004, 05:54:38 pm

jerric -
Did you make sure that the zImage doesn\'t have the .bin extension? You might have to cd to the directory that it\'s in using a DOS prompt and change it with this:

Code: [Select]

rename zImage.bin zImage


As for tkcVideo, personally I use mplayer+XMMS which is free, but I\'ve heard tkcVideo is good.

Title: any danger in flashing ROM?
Post by: zaurusbs on January 01, 2004, 09:40:33 pm

I have tkcVideo and so far it works extremely well. Plays DivX files, which means you can get movies down to a very small file size and still have decent quality.
This site has some useful info on creating movie files for the Z:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cresho/start.htm (http://home.earthlink.net/~cresho/start.htm)
http://home.earthlink.net/~cresho/videorouter.htm (http://home.earthlink.net/~cresho/videorouter.htm)
tkcVideo has some minor quirks (like buttons do slightly different things than they do in the Sharp Media Player) but so far it seems to be well worth the $$$. Of course, it would be BETTER if it were FREE ;-).
I actually couldn\'t get mplayer to work (or Opie Player). It didn\'t crash, it just didn\'t do anything. What could I be doing wrong?