4.0 -beta Packages (and Asst C3200 Info) Available

[gen2]

http://www.planetofidiots.com/zaurus/

corrections welcome on the docs.

[mathemajikian]

Excellent idea!

1.4 - Ports

Create an NFS share on a Linux or BSD box for ports, cause you won't want this stuff locally on the Z. Download ports from some mirror, into your NFS share, like for instance:

# cd /mnt/raid1/obsd
# wget -nd -c http://mirror.sese.asu.edu/pub/OpenBSD/sna...ts/ports.tar.gz
# tar xzf ports.tar.gz

Meanwhile, back at the Zaurus, do the Batch Mode port-build thing (after mounting the NFS share onto the Z):

# cd /usr/ports
# vi mypackages
www/bluefish
net/psi
net/nmap,no_x11

# make BUILD=yes SUBDIRLIST=/usr/ports/mypackages install

[DaemonsGR]

Hello,
Im an OpenBSD user (i386,sparc64) for a long time (since ~2000) but I have stuck with openbsd on my Z because my wifi card is not supported!
I have a planex CF prism3 without firmware on it...

What should I get? I dont want to spend lot of money on it!

Thnx
Tasos

[mathemajikian]

If you read the following post you will see that others have had similar problems with Planex cards: https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=20116

Purchase one of the following Wifi CF cards:

Intersil PRISM-2-3 based 802.11b Compact Flash adapters (wi)

    * AmbiCom WL1100C-CF
    * ASUS WL-110
    * Belkin F5D6060
    * Buffalo AirStation
    * D-Link DCF-660W
    * ELSA XI800
    * Linksys WCF12
    * Netgear MA701
    * Pretec Compact WLAN OC-WLBXX-A
    * Senao NL-2511CF

[mathemajikian]

FVWM2 uses only 1.5MB RAM?!?!? Going to have to check this out. Fluxbox uses ~3.0MB RAM!

How about posting a screenshot of your fvwm desktop on your website to show off your fvwm2rc config?

1.6 - Window Manager

If I can avoid using X on a Z, I do (about 70% of time). Currently using fvwm2 for resource-conservation purposes (don't care about transparent terminals on my Z). I just started working on an fvwm2rc file (save as ~/.fvwm/.fvwm2rc). Work in Progress atm (rather annoying conf schema), but so far so good. Please post your impressive fvwm2rc files at the zobsd forum. Fvwm2 restarts in about 2 seconds, takes about 1.5MB ram.

[gen2]

How about posting a screenshot of your fvwm desktop on your website to show off your fvwm2rc config?

Done.

[mathemajikian]

How about posting a screenshot of your fvwm desktop on your website to show off your fvwm2rc config?

Done.
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Excellent!

I gave FVWM2  a shot but I can't seem to live without fluxbox for now.  I'm going to keep it on the Z just to fiddle with. It uses about 1MB less resident memory and is a tad bit quicker when loading than fluxbox.

EDIT: I have done away with Fluxbox! FVWM2 is the best keyboard + mouse window manager I have used on the Zaurus thus far!

[mathemajikian]

If you like ratposion then you should try out Ion3. It's my favorite all keyboard window manager.

1.6 - Window Manager

The Zaurus is not "fast" by desktop standards. One must decide how much waiting is tolerable when launching a window manager, desktop apps, or simply moving windows around on the screen. I choose as-fast-as-possible over pretty (with extreme prejudice), and tend to avoid icon usage. After some research, my preference order is:

0) console
1) ratpoison
2) fvwm2

[vrejakti]

FVWM2 uses only 1.5MB RAM?!?!? Going to have to check this out. Fluxbox uses ~3.0MB RAM!

How about posting a screenshot of your fvwm desktop on your website to show off your fvwm2rc config?

I can top that: dwm uses less than 1.1MB of memory. It is an elitist window manager, hence it's lack of popularity. ^^

You can read about it here.

Some info from the author:

* dwm is only a single binary, it's source code is intended to never exceed 2000 SLOC.

* dwm is customized through editing its source code, that makes it extremely fast and secure - it does not process any input data which hasn't been known at compile time, except window title names and status text read from standard input. You don't have to learn Lua/sh/ruby or some weird configuration file format (like X resource files), beside C to customize it for your needs, you only have to learn C (at least editing header files).

* Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it's pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions.

I've been playing around with it since version 0.1 - I have compiled it on OpenBSD 3.9, pdaXrom, Gentoo Linux, Fedora Core... long as you have a good amount of X11 headers installed, it should compile OK.

Keep in mind, the author wrote dwm for himself. wmii is another project of his that has plenty more features with an active community.

[mathemajikian]

Going to have to check dwm out! Ion3 uses ~3.5MB of RAM!  

I can top that: dwm uses less than 1.1MB of memory. It is an elitist window manager, hence it's lack of popularity. ^^

[TronDD]

I've been using wmii for some time.  (See my mouse patch for slightly older wmii versions here.)

Was going to switch to dwm but I don't think it supports the stacked and maximized modes I use on the Z.

[mathemajikian]

How stable have you found wmii to be? I read a few reviews concerning wmii and they all pretty much said that it was still kinda buggy. Is that true?

I've been using wmii for some time.  (See my mouse patch for slightly older wmii versions here.)
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[TronDD]

Hasn't been buggy for me.  I use a pretty consistent set of apps and they all work very well with wmii.  Most of the complaints I have seen are with certain applications not behaving as expected (or desired) with wmii.  Often that is an issue with the specific app not following standards.

My only complaint with wmii is a sluggish feel when opening apps.  Might just be the Zaurus.  Besides the Z, I only use wmii on a linux box with completly different applications and very rarely, so I have little basis for comparison.  It's not so bad I need to investigate it anyway.

[mathemajikian]

Here's an MSN Messanger console client which works great with OpenBSD 4.0. I made some slight changes to the interface and to the startup scripts since I didn't  like the original programs colors or startup messages. If you use MSN Messanger but don't want to load gaim or some other bulky program then you should give this a shot:

EDIT: Just noticed that there is no other console msn messager in the ports collection, so I created a makefile and such and submitted it to the ports maintainers.
 

To install just untar.gz msncp-0.7.0-beta.tar.gz and run msncp from within the msncp-0.7.0-beta directory

[gen2]

I can top that: dwm uses less than 1.1MB of memory. It is an elitist window manager, hence it's lack of popularity. ^^

I've been playing around with it since version 0.1 - I have compiled it on OpenBSD 3.9, pdaXrom, Gentoo Linux, Fedora Core... long as you have a good amount of X11 headers installed, it should compile OK.

Anyone get dwm running on 4.0beta? It compiles fine, and works with the stylus (switches modes/desktops), but the moment I use any z keys it freezes.

I did try dwm out on laptop, and it's very cool! Right up my alley anyway.  Could easily see using it full time on limited-resource devices.