BEST X11 ROM

[scoutme]

...souds like revelating? It isn\'t

finally just a question:


WHICH IS THE BEST (according to you, with arguments) X11 OR QT DISTRO FOR AN SL-C860?



thank you

[jabbath]

X11 is better if you want to use your zaurus as a slow but mini Laptop.
QT is better if you want to use your zaurus as a PDA (fast apps: calendar, notes, addressbook etc.)
Use both with dualboot, if you want to use your zaurus as a PDA with fast apps AND as a mini-laptop

jabbath

[datajerk]

I prefer QT for the PDA apps, easy sync, opera.  But I still need to run X apps and use X/qt for that.  And I do not have to dual boot.  Some of the pdaxrom apps run under QT/X/qt, others do not.  I recompile the ones that do not run that I need.

[amrein]

I don\'t know if QTE applications are faster than X11 one. For application with the same size, I haven\'t noticed difference. Certainly because X11+C is as fast as QTE/C++.
QT/X11 applications should be slower than QTE one thought.

I\'m definitively waiting for QT4/embedded and OE/Familiar

At present, I think that the Qtopia ROMs (Cacko) win because they have more applications + the desktop is easier + all Qtopia source are there + they are more easy to program (Qte/Qtopia source, virtual framebuffer, TT designer, TT linguist...) + applications are smaller + PIM and synchronisation + very good trolltech documentation (doc.trolltech.com).

[scoutme]

So:

pdaXrom (that is Cacko X11, right?) is slower than Qtopia? and OZ-Opie?
Is using pdaXrom OR OZ-Opie instead of Sharp linux worthy?
Or a tweaked Sharp rom is better?
Handwriting apps present in each of those distro?

[amrein]

Code: [Select]

pdaXrom (that is Cacko X11, right?) is slower than Qtopia? and OZ-Opie?
No. In my point of view, they are as fast.

Code: [Select]

Is using pdaXrom OR OZ-Opie instead of Sharp linux worthy?

Yes.

Or a tweaked Sharp rom is better?

Yes as well. Cacko is better then default Sharp ROM.

Handwriting apps present in each of those distro?

pdaXrom is in heavy development and doesn\'t have handwriting apps. It could use Familiar/GPE apps thought.

Each distro has its advantages:

_ QTopia/Opie doesn\'t use a lot of memory, applications are small and documentation & many tools are available.  But small applications are not powerful and Qtopia/Opie lacks X11+GTK+QT/x11 compatibility. With them, any file coming from a standard Linux distribution can be used out of the box (Debian ARM or netwinder.org distro for example).

_ pdaXrom uses X11 and you can add default applications from ARM Desktop distributions. But it isn\'t built like an Open Source distro (I mean like Debian) but like a monolithic rom. It lacks compatibility with other distro (Debian package dependencies for example). It lacks documentation. Most applications are heavy. There\'s a lot of thing to do as it is just born. And unfortunately they are doing the same mistake as Sharp: the distro is not enough open and the work with the Open Source community is difficult because of this (as Sharp rom, it will be replaced by something more open if it doesn\'t change). It\'s also difficult for then to use something else (like OE build system) because they could completely loose their user base. But whatever they do, will this change something? If users choose something more open like OE/Familiar, they won\'t survive.

_ OE can build anything: X11 rom or Qtopia/Opie rom. Shortly, we should see something like OE/Familiar for iPaq & Zaurus (& perhaps other). At present, it lacks man resource, its web site is a mess when searching for something (and they don\'t want to recognize it), it is not as stable as pdaXrom and not as active too. More then this, they need to come back into people heart like it was when OZ for 5500 was released. Even if Linus Torvald have chosen BitKeeper to maintain the Linux kernel repository, people have been discouraged that OE uses BitKeeper instead of cvs to manage their source. The acid reactions of the OE leader on IRC or on Sharp forum haven\'t sort this issue out (on the contrary). Now people like Mickey are improving a lot the communication between everyone (and few of us expect a lot from this).

What you should do is to try them all and find what you prefer. At present, the 3 best working distro in my point of view are: Sharp ROM, Cacko ROM and pdaXrom (in random order).

[lardman]

_ QTopia/Opie doesn\'t use a lot of memory, applications are small and documentation & many tools are available. But small applications are not powerful and Qtopia/Opie lacks X11+GTK+QT/x11 compatibility.

I disagree with your view that small apps are not powerful. After all a Linux distro itself is a collection of small apps which all pull together to be quite powerful. I also take issue with the \'lack of X11\' comment. X11 apps can be run without major troubles using Xqt.

_ OE can build anything: X11 rom or Qtopia/Opie rom. Shortly, we should see something like OE/Familiar for iPaq & Zaurus (& perhaps other). At present, it lacks man resource, its web site is a mess when searching for something (and they don\'t want to recognize it), it is not as stable as pdaXrom and not as active too. More then this, they need to come back into people heart like it was when OZ for 5500 was released. Even if Linus Torvald have chosen BitKeeper to maintain the Linux kernel repository, people have been discouraged that OE uses BitKeeper instead of cvs to manage their source. The acid reactions of the OE leader on IRC or on Sharp forum haven\'t sort this issue out (on the contrary). Now people like Mickey are improving a lot the communication between everyone (and few of us expect a lot from this).

I was one of the ones who had issues with using bitkeeper (it\'s a real pain to use with Windows), however treke is now providing snapshots so this issue has resolved itself (plus the fact that I have a Linux box up on the net now). I don\'t understand the excitment about OE/familiar. The Zaurus version of what you want is called OpenZaurus, and it already exists. I agree that merging familiar and OpenZaurus is probably a good thing (to reduce replicated work) but not from a functionality point of view as the two do the same thing (but for different hardware).

Regards,


Simon

[scoutme]

Each distro has its advantages:

_ QTopia/Opie doesn\'t use a lot of memory, applications are small and documentation & many tools are available.  But small applications are not powerful and Qtopia/Opie lacks X11+GTK+QT/x11 compatibility. With them, any file coming from a standard Linux distribution can be used out of the box (Debian ARM or netwinder.org distro for example).

_ pdaXrom uses X11 and you can add default applications from ARM Desktop distributions. But it isn\'t built like an Open Source distro (I mean like Debian) but like a monolithic rom. It lacks compatibility with other distro (Debian package dependencies for example). It lacks documentation. Most applications are heavy. There\'s a lot of thing to do as it is just born. And unfortunately they are doing the same mistake as Sharp: the distro is not enough open and the work with the Open Source community is difficult because of this (as Sharp rom, it will be replaced by something more open if it doesn\'t change). It\'s also difficult for then to use something else (like OE build system) because they could completely loose their user base. But whatever they do, will this change something? If users choose something more open like OE/Familiar, they won\'t survive.

_ OE can build anything: X11 rom or Qtopia/Opie rom. Shortly, we should see something like OE/Familiar for iPaq & Zaurus (& perhaps other). At present, it lacks man resource, its web site is a mess when searching for something (and they don\'t want to recognize it), it is not as stable as pdaXrom and not as active too. More then this, they need to come back into people heart like it was when OZ for 5500 was released. Even if Linus Torvald have chosen BitKeeper to maintain the Linux kernel repository, people have been discouraged that OE uses BitKeeper instead of cvs to manage their source. The acid reactions of the OE leader on IRC or on Sharp forum haven\'t sort this issue out (on the contrary). Now people like Mickey are improving a lot the communication between everyone (and few of us expect a lot from this).

What you should do is to try them all and find what you prefer. At present, the 3 best working distro in my point of view are: Sharp ROM, Cacko ROM and pdaXrom (in random order).

So, if OpenZaurus is a sort of Zaurus-familiar - as lardman says - but in a good state of development, and it has the advantages of compatibility with both X11 and Qt apps (basically the advantages of OE, as amrei said), maybe the best choice should be OpenZaurus.

But OpenZaurus has a GUI server included? And if not, what are the possible choices? Does anyone use picoGui, and know how is it?

[lardman]

but in a good state of development

Yes and no. OZ lacks developers for a start (to develop Zaurus specific functionality). Familiar is (I think) ahead in some areas as it\'s supported by Compaq themselves - this means hardware docs (for the iPAQ) and originally (?) professional programmers from Compaq (though I may be wrong about the current level of involvement). However this only applies to the iPAQ (so attempting to use familiar on the Z instead of OZ is complete folly, the bits where they are ahead either are, or contain iPAQ specific code).

The hope is to get familiar and it\'s various bits and pieces (inc newer kernels) integrated in OE with the Zaurus (and other ARM) work and thereby add to our functionality. Nevertheless the relative lack of support from Sharp hinders progress developing for the Zaurus.

This is just my gut feeling and opinion, I may of course be completely wrong.

But OpenZaurus has a GUI server included?

Yes, Opie which is the equivalent of Qtopia. Once the X libs are merged into OE (and tested) GPE can be brought in (he says hopefully). If you have the motivation (and time) I\'m sure it would be fairly easy to compile your own X libs (and in doing so get them working with OZ) and set them ontop of the OZ base libs etc. and have a working X setup ontop of OZ.

I think this is worth doing BTW, not because I want to take people away from pdaXrom, but just because I\'d like to see everything integrated (and imo OZ is pushing forward and seems to have greater possibility for choice of GUI - once X is sorted out and brought in of course).


Si

[treke]

I don\'t understand the excitment about OE/familiar. The Zaurus version of what you want is called OpenZaurus, and it already exists. I agree that merging familiar and OpenZaurus is probably a good thing (to reduce replicated work) but not from a functionality point of view as the two do the same thing (but for different hardware).

Well OpenZaurus in the sense of OZ 3.2 or 3.3.5 is completely unmaintained. The future of the Project is based on OE, and really only exists within the OE project itself. A common misconception I see is that OZ and familiar are merging, and that is definitely not true. What is happening is there are talks of using the OE build system to build familiar, just like we are trying to convince Sash to use OE for his X11 images. The end products may not change at all, what would change is how the packages are compiled. Hopefully it would also involve less duplication of work on maintaining parts of the base system, but it\'s likely that all three would need to \"fork\" the packages for their own systems.

[scoutme]

another question: do original sharp-rom application work with other distro? or better, in which rom do original apps work (other than sharp one, I mean  )?