Messages

1

Sharp PC-Z1 NetWalker / Zaurus Is Dead .... Long Living Zaurus Aka Pc-z1

« on: August 27, 2009, 04:27:37 pm »

Well, I won't buy this new Sharp device. Why? Because of this amazing device:

Nokia  N900 - new Maemo 5 Linux device with complete phone stack

Do we really need more from a smartphone?

2

New products and alternatives / Gigabyte Mid M528, The Next Zaurus

« on: July 12, 2008, 11:25:21 am »

The video (at the end of the page) and the specifications you will found here are enough to understand what I can feel now:

http://www.umpcportal.com/products/product.php?id=170

Excitation.

3

Debian / Zaurus-debianeabi Under Qemu

« on: April 20, 2008, 01:20:31 pm »

Can you add the kernel too on your website.
Would like to try...

4

New products and alternatives / Mysterious New Zaurus-like Clamshell Device

« on: April 20, 2008, 04:21:28 am »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzJjonVzfrw&feature=user

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/03/video-i...ossibly-worlds/

This is the same guy at the end of the last video, isn't it? I saw him in other Intel video talking (always talking about the moorestown ultra small pc motherboard).

5

New products and alternatives / Mysterious New Zaurus-like Clamshell Device

« on: April 20, 2008, 04:10:44 am »

The size of the Zaurus but a full micro PC...
With Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, good battery life, high speed mobile network, a small camera (for conference call) and I won't resist to buy one.
With a sliding keyboard, I will have an heart attack : "No, Noooo.... My precious... Haaahhaaa...".  

6

General Discussion / Zaurus Rom Zoo, But Where's A Vision?

« on: October 13, 2007, 07:51:57 am »

I killed the thread with my comments? Ooops. Sorry. Really, this wasn't intentional.

7

General Discussion / Zaurus Rom Zoo, But Where's A Vision?

« on: October 10, 2007, 03:20:53 pm »

Just free your mind. Start innovating. Free your mind of what you already know and figth for what you want so much.
I have sleepless nights since 4 weeks because of this.

8

General Discussion / Zaurus Rom Zoo, But Where's A Vision?

« on: October 10, 2007, 02:56:09 pm »

Experts are leaders of the past. Visionaries are leaders of the future.

I can't agree more.

Walkman, I'm happy to see that you are trying to do something that match your expectation. Mainly because it's the only way to build something useful.

You asked for a few ideas. Here is a brain storming without a lot of thought:

- You can get easily the base of the system (kernel, initscripts, X11, ...). This is not an issue. OE or pdaXrom builder can do this for you easily.
- Desktop applications are not build for PDAs (touch screen, memory, storage, finger, speed, time loading...).
- The main graphic libraries are not PDA friendly (Qt, GTK). The others libraries have too much bugs on ARM or are too simples (FLTK, wxWindows, XForm, VCF, WDesktop...)
- Dev tools are too complicated to install and use (native build system, emulator, images, cross-compile, ...)
- Contributors can't contribute patches or applications easily. They need to know Linux, python, bash, ... and many other tools
- There is no Visionaries in the house and no big ideas to follow

So, with the VM you want and GTK or Qt you will have the PDA you expect.

Me? I want to rebuild a new powerful X11 library PDA friendly (a fusion of GTK, GDK, Libpng, ...). I want to rebuild most of the good desktop applications with it. Rebuild my own WM and main screen with my own PDA desktop. And why should it be just as bad as other Linux desktop? Why not as good, as fast and as easy to use as the iPhone ones?

Demo from Apple;
http://www.apple.com/iphone/gettingstarted/guidedtour.html

Complet French review:
http://www.mobinaute.com/79924-test-apple-...phon-page1.html

Applications and software for the Zaurus are outdated and don't comply with today PDA expectations. I never felt comfortable using them. I don't want frustration any more and I don't use my Zaurus. And I won't switch to the iPhone because I don't want the Apple monopoly nor do I want to use anything as long as it is not free software inside.

Here where I am. Stuck with dreams.

Really, I'm frightened for www.openmoko.org .

9

General Discussion / Zaurus Rom Zoo, But Where's A Vision?

« on: October 10, 2007, 09:50:04 am »

walkman, are you saying all this because you have the hope that people here will begin to work together to define the next MEGA Linux Palmtop OS ?
Perhaps you would like to see innovations on this platform or upcoming ones? Are you waiting for a well defined roadmap? Good ideas like in the iPhone or the last HTC devices?
There are none. Most people here just follow ideas from others.

A few people have bring what they wanted on the Zaurus (debian, BSD, Gentoo, X11/desktop, Qtopia, ...) and apparently they don't need more.
The others are waiting for the Messiah and will always complain about lack of time. They don't know how to invest themselves into what they would like to see next and most of them don't want to.

My own idea is so complicated and difficult to achieve that it's less frightening to put a gun on my head than trying to do it.

10

General Discussion / Is The Z, Archos Pma, Etc Dead?

« on: August 17, 2007, 07:33:40 pm »

Is The Z, Archos Pma, Etc Dead?

Here is how I see it:

To still be alive, a PDA or PDAphone need to have customers, faithful customers,  good press with good review and companies working on solutions arround it. It needs to evolve to meet customers expectations, press expectations and partners expectations.

- Customers buy the product, the accessories, the applications and they talk about it all around. The users are the one that make your company and product stay alive because they bring you the money.
- Press and reviews show how the product works. They show you how the device can be useful. They bring you news of the market and show you how to solve your every day needs. They even create new expectations on hardware and software.
- And to finish, companies bring you new software, new accessories, new services...
So, don't you think that the Z, the Linux Archos, (...) are just missing all of those points?

You buy a Zaurus. Are you happy with it? How are you using it? Are you happy with the software and the hardware list in the device or on the net? Is it easy to use? Will Joe six packs, your neighboring, be happy with it? If one of your answers is no, this market is in trouble. People who are not happy with this device won't talk about it. If you still want to promote it, will you really interest other people? ssh, apt-get, startx, "mv image-yoyo-1234.zaza /mnt/cfcard/image.img", reboot, kill sound-at-poweron, freeze, reboot, modprobe...? If they can't get it, they won't buy it and the company won't have the needed income to continue. You just loose because this is not a mass market but a to small one.
The press has similar expectation than advanced users. They also react like your Joe six packs. Even if they have advanced skills, they will think about their audience first. Mainly they want to have useful devices and want to report to Joe six packs (the one that bring them money) "This device is good to solve your issue. You need to buy it, it won't disappoint you". If you don't feed the press with good device hardware and good software solution, they won't publish good reviews and won't promote it at all. More than this, as they have their hands grafted on their Pc keyboard and are used to other devices, they will always have a nasty review about your device as long as your PDA keyboard is trying to mimic a full Pc keyboard for example, or if you don't have good synchronization solution, or good PIMs, .... They won't think a lot. They won't tell their readers "without this keyboard, you will need to type slowly with a stylus or mark you device with fingerprints"...
People expect good hardware upgrade and a lot of good and easy software and the Zaurus and other hardware and software expectations are not fulfilled since many years. There is no big market for companies to work on (no money to do if you prefer). There are no big news around the Zaurus either (software and hardware) nor a big user base.

And the result of all this? All those devices are dying!
Well, who should we blame?

11

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / New Poky Image, How To Use A Standard Mouse ?

« on: August 06, 2007, 04:40:24 pm »

I tried " export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0" but it doesn't work.

I'm using Mandriva Spring (2007.1), the best Mandrivalinux release ever.

12

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / New Poky Image, How To Use A Standard Mouse ?

« on: August 02, 2007, 04:32:00 pm »

I run Qemu like this :

# /usr/bin/qemu -kernel '/home/camrein/rpm/bzImage-2.6.21-qemux86-blinky-3.0.bin' -append 'root=/dev/hda' -boot c -m 512 -hda '/home/camrein/rpm/poky-image-sdk-qemux86-blinky-3.0.rootfs.ext2' -net nic,vlan=0 -net user,vlan=0 -localtime -soundhw sb16

After kernel, X11 start, then the calibration process begin. No way to have my ps2 mouse recognized. I can't click nor move any pointer. Any solution other than removing /etc/X11/Xsession.d/30xTs_Calibrate ?

Without 30xTs_Calibrate the mouse won't work, just the keyboard

Some help is welcome.

13

New products and alternatives / A Business Card-sized Motherboard From Via

« on: June 07, 2007, 11:14:23 am »

---8<----
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS6249674338.html
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=162756\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

If someone could retrofit that into my beloved Psion S5 I'd be a very very happy man...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=162774\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

So would I.

14

New products and alternatives / A Business Card-sized Motherboard From Via

« on: June 07, 2007, 01:01:11 am »

---8<----
Via CEO Wenchi Chen revealed a business card-sized motherboard billed as the "world's first industry-standard form-factor for PC/phone convergence," at Computex today. The "mobile-ITX" board measures 3 x 1.8 inches -- half the size of Via's "pico-ITX" form-factor -- and runs Windows XP Embedded or Linux.
---8<----

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS6249674338.html

15

Linux Issues / Ubuntu Will Develop Mobile Linux

« on: May 11, 2007, 04:39:46 am »

When I read this : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6634195.stm I'm pretty sure that the wall market is waiting for a good Linux OS for PDA/PDAphone, a good Windows Mobile alternative.

Finally, I agree that handheld ubuntu is a good thing. I thought you maybe had reservations?

None . They bring competition to this market and more than this, other distro will certainly react to this move and try to do something too in the future (if it works). Redhat is talking about embedded distro for years but nothing has come out...