Pdaxrom Vs Sharp/oe Based Roms

[omro]

Hi there,

I'm curious about putting a new Rom onto my C1000. I've yet to do so, have felt the fear. I know that Sharp Rom I have works and does most of what I need OK.

However, when OE based Roms or the Cacko Rom are ready for the C1000 or when the pdaXrom is ready for the C1000

Which is most versatile and useful?

And why?

[koen]

Hi there,

I'm curious about putting a new Rom onto my C1000. I've yet to do so, have felt the fear. I know that Sharp Rom I have works and does most of what I need OK.

However, when OE based Roms or the Cacko Rom are ready for the C1000 or when the pdaXrom is ready for the C1000

Which is most versatile and useful?

And why?
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Cacko (and other clones) is just like the one from sharp: it works. The stuff from pdaX and OE was designed to be extensible en versatile, so I'd go with one of those. Judging from this forum the pdaX image has slightly better support for the cx000 series.
As always: make a backup and try what's available.

[offroadgeek]

omro, it really depends on what you're trying to do.  If you need your 1000 to be more 'pda-like' so that you can sync with a windows box and ms outlook, then you're probably better off with the sharp based rom (just wait for the cacko beta for the 1000, it's real pretty, and maslovsky cleans up the sharp rom nicely).

If you're looking for your 1000 to be a 'mini-laptop' or true portable computer, then the oz/opie, oz/gpe, or pdaxrom will be better suited for you.  Also, if you need to sync with a linux box, I believe the these will work better for that as well.

[omro]

My main needs are good spreadsheet, good word processor, good pim, webserver and decent html/php editor.

A lovely interface wouldn't go amiss though, we do like it when our PDA looks nice to use!

[azalin]

I think there are quite a few people with this same question (including me!). I tried searching for an answer in some kind of faq but I couldn't find one (but perhaps I searched in the wrong places), so perhaps a good idea to include it somewhere as a sticky (since it changes a lot as development of the rom's progresses).

I read in a few places that "fpu emulation is different", depending on which rom you use. How is this different exactly? Also did I read it correctly that the Qtopia in the open source variants is different than the one in the Sharp rom because it was forked in an open one and a closed one with more features? If so, what are those features?

Ka/Pi is a good PIM. How slow is open office on the Z under pdaXrom?

My main use for the Z would be like a mini-laptop, to write latex documents and view them, xfig, gimp and as a vnc client or x-terminal. So for my use I think pdaXrom would be best (using sharp rom right now though, waiting till the next RC). Or would one of the OZ roms do as well? My concern is that pdaXrom is slower though because of code bloat in the applications originally written for desktop systems (as the Z only has 64 megs SDRAM, and swapping memory would mean thrashing your NAND or SD card eventually). Is this concern justified?

I wish there was some sort of FLTK rom and a program that converts C++ sources for GTK+ / wxWidgets / Qtopia stuff etc. to FLTK (because that one is said to have a small memory footprint). I saw there is an FLTK ipk for pdaXrom already though.

I also saw there was a BSD somewhere, how about that one?

[koen]

My main use for the Z would be like a mini-laptop, to write latex documents and view them, xfig, gimp and as a vnc client or x-terminal. So for my use I think pdaXrom would be best (using sharp rom right now though, waiting till the next RC). Or would one of the OZ roms do as well? My concern is that pdaXrom is slower though because of code bloat in the applications originally written for desktop systems (as the Z only has 64 megs SDRAM, and swapping memory would mean thrashing your NAND or SD card eventually). Is this concern justified?

I wish there was some sort of FLTK rom and a program that converts C++ sources for GTK+ / wxWidgets / Qtopia stuff etc. to FLTK (because that one is said to have a small memory footprint). I saw there is an FLTK ipk for pdaXrom already though.

I also saw there was a BSD somewhere, how about that one?
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'Code bloat' and the fltk stuff is just good old FUD spread by TT and the fltk people. I run X and abiword on my c700 and it isn't 'slow' or 'bloated'.
 Not painting to the framebuffer directly or having 200k more RAM usage doesn't make it suddenly unuseable. The new zaurus model are a lot more powerfull than your desktop a few years ago, and that could handle stuff like win98.

[maslovsky]

omro,  I don't think you'll get an answer untill you try it for yourself..

[tsmori]

The best thing to do is to try them out for yourself. It's not something you have to fear, but you do need to be aware of the need for good backups and knowing how to restore to your current ROM, i.e. typically doing a NAND restore. That sounds worse than it is, it's not hard at all.

I've tried the OZ for my C1000 and it's pretty nice, but the lack of a good browser and email program made it frustrating for me. Those two things seem somewhat intrinsic for any kind of networkable PDA. I considered pdaXrom and it's something I probably will try eventually as I really prefer the X GUI, but I'm going to wait until RCs become less beta-ish and more done-ish.

And as an end-user and not a developer, I don't mind waiting.

[jh]

I agree -- only after trying them yourself will you know which one is best for you.

I'm currently running an OZ 3.5.3 image I customized by replacing the opie PIM apps with ko/pi and ka/pi.  Then I run pocketworkstation from my SD card which allows me to use firefox when I really need a graphical web browser.  It takes a minute or so to actually load, but once it's up it is great.

When I don't need the UI of firefox, I'm perfectly happy browsing sites with links on either the console or in the konsole app.

I haven't tried pdaxrom yet, but I will sometime.  The appeal of OZ is that it's designed for a PDA.   I know the environment of the pdaxrom can be tweaked to have a similar design goal, i'm just not sure i'm ready to take that leap yet.  Plus, having openembedded around to build apps for my zaurus is very cool.

jason

[pgas]

Note that OZ has 2 flavors:
- OZ/opie: which is based on a rewrite/fork of qtopia.
- OZ/gpe: which is based on X.

Pdaxrom and OZ/gpe both use matchbox panel and desktop (but not the same windows manager) by default.

There is one reason not to quit qtopia (original software/cacko): the ability to synch with outlook.

Ko/pi Ka/pi is portable and can be used everywhere, but the ability to set alarms that wakes up the Z with it is not available on X based rom

An X server can also be run inside qtopia/opie.

open office is only available through the installation of a chrooted debian.

[koen]

Ko/pi Ka/pi is portable and can be used everywhere, but the ability to set alarms that wakes up the Z with it is not available on X based rom
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After patching the X server, my Z wakes up for alarm. Now I just need to remember to set them

[pgas]

you set them with some command line tool? like at ? or with gpe-alarm or something?

[koen]

you set them with some command line tool? like at ? or with gpe-alarm or something?
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In gpe-calendar

[omro]

Does pdaXrom have good PDA type support? i.e. will it use things like the USB host, can it connect to a PC with USB networking?

What is the default window manager?

Can it cope with full apps quickly? What is the best office suite for it?

Can instant on and off work?

Any issues with key mappings?

[pgas]

Does pdaXrom have good PDA type support? i.e. will it use things like the USB host, can it connect to a PC with USB networking?

yes, like the other distributions

What is the default window manager?

openbox

Can it cope with full apps quickly?

what do you mean? it takes 20-30 seconds to open firefox if this is the kind of response you need.

What is the best office suite for it?

abiword-gnumeric is what has been ported (OpenOffice is available only in debian in a chrooted environement)

Can instant on and off work?

I think nobody would use a distribution if you had to shutdown/reboot the zaurus everytime. So suspend/resume is available everywhere.

Any issues with key mappings?

like what? Nothing that prevent you to type...