Author Topic: Sharp Rom For Uk Zaurus (Read 5718 times)

paddington · « **on:** February 22, 2005, 06:20:04 pm »

Evening all...

I have a recently purchased SL-5500, and having been playing with it for a few days it's going well. However, it looks as though there are other exciting ROMs out there which are worth trying.

But.... I don't want to get into anything I can't get back from!

The ROM version I have is 2.39. The Zaurus is a UK model, with Â£ (pound) and â‚¬ (euro) symbols on the keyboard. I can find Sharp ROMs up to 2.38 and from 3.10 on the ZUG site.

So: assuming I try another ROM, then want to get back:

question 1: if I use one of the ROMs from the ZUG site, will I still have a UK zaurus at the end of it, or are these specifically US ROM's which (eg) don't know about fn-4 on the keyboard producing a UK pound sign?

question 2: if the UK/US thing is a problem, does anyone know where I can get the UK ROM? www.sharp.co.uk is useless !

question 3: if no joy on either of the above, can I backup my own ROM in some way?

And finally
question 4: (assuming I have a fallback route of some sort), what other ROMs would be best to try, and why?

Thanks for any pointers or help.......

tumnus · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2005, 06:29:12 pm »

Sharp UK completely dropped support for the Zaurus some time ago.

In any case, the US ROMs still have the euro and pound signs in the same place. I put the 3.10 ROM on my UK SL-5500 and they still worked. Even on my US 5600, with no euro or pound symbols above the 3 and 4 keys it still works.

The only difference I have seen between the US and UK ROMs is when you first boot up after a full reset, the initial time zone selections on the US ROMs do not include the UK. But this is easily fixed by clicking the globe icon, finding Great Britain, not UK or England, and picking London.

craigtyson · « **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2005, 06:58:44 pm »

Yup if Sharp were given points for customer support theyd be looking at a big fat zero. As far as ROMs r conserned the quicker you ditch the SHARP ROM and go to one that has been developed over the last two year the quicker you will get more out of your Z

A ROM based on the 3.1 SHARP ROM would probably be the best bet to start with as they dont tend to do anything scairy (if you follow the insteuctions) and behave much like the v2 ROM youve got exhept for a documents tab that is usefull (as apposed to the v2 one) and styles to pretty up the display.

If you think you have the v3.1 ROMs sorted (including tkc v1 v2alpha Craco and a few others) then you could try an OZ ROM (open zaurus)

While you can always go back to a prior ROM you might ask why you need to. Unless you have a burning need to sync your calandar with outlook you could use a 3.1 ROM and the USB storage driver (makes you Z look like a USB stick drive to any PC) to copy files to and from your PC.

As its a linux box the choice is yours..... Pick a ROM any ROM dont tell me what it is yet. just put it back in the deck and.......

Happy flashing....

Craig

paddington · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2005, 03:04:28 pm »

Quote

While you can always go back to a prior ROM you might ask why you need to. Unless you have a burning need to sync your calandar with outlook you could use a 3.1 ROM and the USB storage driver (makes you Z look like a USB stick drive to any PC) to copy files to and from your PC.

Thanks to both of you who responded! I've downloaded the 3.13 ROM and am currently grabbing the 2.38 just in case.

The only reason really that I want to be able to restore to where I am is in case I ever want to re-sell the Z: someone new to it would probably rather have a machine which does just what the manual says!

Is there any difficulty with transferring records from a Palm to either Sharp ROM 3.1 or OZ? I've got them into the Z at the moment (with a copy on my desktop machine) using the Perl script: will the 3.1 ROM just convert the current addressbook.xml file? AIUI, OZ uses an xml format anyway...

paddington · « **Reply #4 on:** March 02, 2005, 04:58:24 pm »

Right, bit of an update!

I've now got the 3.13 ROM loaded. One or two bits seem to be missing, though!

First, the â‚¬ and Â£ keys aren't working. Nor is rhe feature of the input systems where words are 'offered' as you type: only the individual letter comesup, unless I've manually added a word.

Any ideas? Is it worth trying re-flashing? The lack of words while inputting looks like a missing fileto me - but since it would presumably be in the ROM it would take reflashing to correct this. As for the loss of the currency keys, that doesn't fit with Tumnus' experience....

craigtyson · « **Reply #5 on:** March 03, 2005, 11:24:07 am »

Its not a ROM If tried, but on the tkc v1 Iv always had the currency and no problem with work picker. One thing to note though the first ROM I downloaded was corrupt. Everything worked exept networking. Id try another download / copy to CF and give it another go.

Optogeek · « **Reply #6 on:** March 03, 2005, 01:25:00 pm »

To get the word picker thingy to work you need to install the Word Game it should be availible where ever you got the rom.

I have never had any problem with the euro and pound keys though.

paddington · « **Reply #7 on:** March 03, 2005, 06:04:32 pm »

Quote

To get the word picker thingy to work you need to install the Word Game it should be availible where ever you got the rom.
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Thanks - that (combined with a reboot) sorted that problem

Now just the currency keys one remains. Is there perhaps a locale setting somewhere which I might be missing?

Must do myself a signature......

tumnus · « **Reply #8 on:** March 03, 2005, 06:15:27 pm »

Like I said, I have a UK 5500 with the 3.1 ROm and the current keys work as before.

Remember you must press AND release FN, then press Shift+3/4

paddington · « **Reply #9 on:** March 04, 2005, 05:05:09 pm »

Quote

Like I said, I have a UK 5500 with the 3.1 ROm and the current keys work as before.

Remember you must press AND release FN, then press Shift+3/4
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I re-flashed last night: it all works now.

I'm fairly sure I was getting the key combination right.....

Thanks to all for all the help!

conn-fused · « **Reply #10 on:** December 23, 2005, 03:17:20 pm »

I have a US SL5500 running OZ3.5.3. I'd also like to be able to produce a Euro symbol on my zaurus but Fn+Shft+4 does nothing.

Interestingly, Fn+Space also does nothing ... it certainly doesn't bring up a keyboard. However, Fn+Shft+, does work to bring up a [, and Fn+Shft+p brings up a ].

Have other US users noticed this behavior? What about 3.5.4 users?

If this isn't a problem in 3.5.4, I'd be willing to upgrade, but on that front I could use some advice. Obviously I'd have to reinstall anything I'd installed to ROM (like extra timezones), but what about RAM? And what about my /home folder, which is exported to an SD card?

Thanks!

lardman · « **Reply #11 on:** December 23, 2005, 04:56:36 pm »

You just need to alter the keyboard map to produce the correct symbols for these special keypresses.

With 3.5.4 there should be a file called /etc/keymap* which you can edit (this is for GPE, not sure about Opie, however you could ask on IRC).

Some of the things you want (like the onscreen keyboard and possibly the backlight keypresses, etc.) will require that their keylaunch (for GPE) or Opie itself traps the keypresses and handles these functions. I'm not sure how to go about this, but ask on IRC and I'm sure someone will be glad to help you out.

Regarding the upgrade, you should wipe your ~ directory (to remove the various conf files). Your ram partition will be lost unless you back it up, however you would be recommended to re-install things as there have been updates.

Hope that helps,

Si

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Author Topic: Sharp Rom For Uk Zaurus (Read 5718 times)