I've had my 860 for a week; before that a 5500 for a couple of years, but never did a lot with it. Although the standard Sharp ROM (with ShirtPocket mods) works well enough I was itching to do some reflashing. First I tried Cacko, then pdaXrom. So with a grand total seven days' experience, here are my initial reactions:
The Sharp ROM was fine for an hour after the machine arrived, then the touchpanel stopped working. After a phone call to ShirtPocket I reflashed it with the Japanese ROM and reinstalled their patches. The machine was fine again. General impressions: There's still too much of a Japanese feel to it and the default keyboard setup has / as a shifted key (as marked on the button), which is a real pain at command level.
Installing the Cacko ROM was easy. Having never done one before I'd been concerned about getting myself an expensive brick, but no worries. [Question: Why do all the flashing instructions talk about removing the battery etc? Surely a reboot with the OK key down has the same effect? Or is there something else going on?] General impressions: More useful gadgets and features, like screen saver (smallest fishtank in the world!) and economy modes. Too many media players, though, and Java has to be installed separately if it's wanted.
The pdaXrom installation was also simple, but with few instructions it wasn't immediately apparent that with Package Manager all the software arrives from an online resource. This would be truly fantastic if it worked, but on my machine a download hung and nothing would persuade the machine to complete one after that. Without a progress indicator it's difficult to see what's happening, and I've yet to see any instructions for Package Manager. Also, the interface is much less polished than either Sharp or Cacko.
Comparisons and conclusions (a personal view): The three ROMs represent a kind of continuum from "Near PDA" to "Geek's Delight", with Cacko somewhere in the middle. I'd like to go with pdaXrom but it lacks the user-friendly widgetness of the others. As a miniature Linux it's fine (assuming the software installer works) but I also want something that feels like a PDA, and I feel it has some way to go for that.
Comparing Sharp and Cacko, the latter has much more readable icons and more helpful goodies. The automounter works properly. On my 5500 - and now with Cacko - I could pop out a card and replace it and the machine would update. On the 860 Sharp I had to tell it each time or it wouldn't notice the change. The only thing that works less well is Kino2. On Sharp it played my movies (400x300) in the middle of the screen; on Cacko they sit down on the bottom left, obscuring the controls. Is there a fix for this?
In conclusion, Cacko is the best compromise by far, but I'll keep an eye pdaXrom developments and try it from time to time.
Cacko wish list: Provide a 'basic' ROM where all applications are installable as needed. As a minimum, give it sshclient and an address to get things from.
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C860 running Cacko 1.2.1b
SanDisk 1Gb SD card
Buffalo WiFi
