SL-5600 Lots of Questions!

[lenk]

Hi...I just got my Zaurus SL-5600 last week from amazon and its a PXA250   Also I ordered a symbol card, 2 lexar 512 CF and SD card. Then I spend a good 1 1/2 weeks reading everything on this forum and also http://externe.net/zaurus/forum and also all the FAQ and HOWTOs.

I have compiled a list of questions on topics I am unclear of. Lets start with my specs:

Zaurus SL-5600 PXA250
Sharp ROM 1.32 from myzaurus.com flashed from v1.0
Symbol Wireless Card (Spectrum24)
Lexar 512MB Compact Flash card
Lexar 512MB Secure Digital card

Here comes the questions, hope you guys can help out, I know some of the questions has already been answered. Please have some patients coz I\'ll be putting this up on a site dedicated to the poodle. Thanks.


ROM from what I understand is made up of 3 files initrd.bin, updater.sh, zImage.bin.

initrd.bin = filesystem with all the apps
zImage.bin= Kernel
updater.sh= update script I presume


Available ROM for the 5600:

Sharp Original ROM 1.32 - stable
TheKompany TKC ROM 1.0 - stable, 2.0 - stable???
Zynergy ROM - stable
Openzaurus/OE - 3.3.6pre1 unstable, 3.3.5 unstable
Cacko/pdaxrom - not stable??? well...its mostly for the CL-7x0 series


Available Kernel for 5600:

Pre-emptive Standard Kernel v1.1 and v1.2 - This kernel turns off the cache erata to fix the PXA250 bug. Gives little more speed improvement.

Special Kernel v1.0,v1.1,v1.2,v1.3 - This kernel is from a japanese guy at http://tetsu.homelinux.org/zaurus/kernel/v13a/
This is a kernel 2.4.18 with the cache erata turned off to fix the PXA250 bug and also overclocks the CPU clock speed from 400MHz to 471MHz.
Wireless Extension is also added.
ced gets credit for translating the intructions.

Sukoshi kernel - This is a popular kernel used by many CL-7x0 user over at http://externe.net/zaurus/forum. There is a kernel for the 5600 (poodle) at his website http://laurent.lieben.free.fr. I have no idea what feature this kernel has but people at externe.net seem to think highly of it. So it must be good.


Questions:

1) From what I read, you can install a ROM and after that you can install any of the kernels above?

2) What kernel version is the pre-emptive kernel running?

3) Anyone know more about the Sukoshi kernel?

4) Which of the above ROM will have the wireless extension enabled and spectrum24 drivers installed? which will allow me to plug&play with my symbol card.

5) Do you need to turn on the wireless extension in the kernel before you   install the spectrum24 driver from
http://www.iral.com:88/~albertr/zaurus/spectrum/

6) How do check whether wireless extension is enabled? How you turn on wireless extension is the kernel?

7) Which spectrum24 to install? I don\'t see any files specific to the 5600 on the url above.

In order to use kismet and Wellenreiter what patch I need? orinico and hostap patch? Where and How to patch these drivers?

9) How can I get the feature where I can change from landscape mode to potrait mode and vice-versa on the fly? I read that OZ can do that, can you enable this feature on other ROMs?

10) What is NAND? Why do NAND backup? How to do a NAND backup on the 5600? How to restore a NAND backup on the 5600?


I am very sure I had more questions that this, but at the moment thats all I remember. Please help answer some of the questions if you can.
Thanks


LK[/url]

[humit]

hi,

1- you can install a different kernel yes, but depending on the config (ie. wireless card support etc.) of the kernel, the applications that come in initrd.bin may or may not run
2- the first two kernel (labeled as pre-emptive) on http://www.zaurususergroup.com/modules.php...download&sid=53
6- lsmod gives you a list of loaded modules (drivers) and modprobe lets you load a module with other module requirements, you can find modules coming with your kernel under /lib/modules/your_kernel version
you can find your kernel version by running uname -r command. wireless modules are generally under /lib/modules/kernel_version/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
9- when you install oz, there is an option in the launcher menu labeled as rotate

[lenk]

Thanks humit for answers.

No more help?

[tumnus]

Only use v1.3 of the Special kernel from the ZUG downloads. All the others have been superceded by this one. They\'re all kernel 2.4.18, but the v1.3 Special kernel is the only fully compatible one, meaning you won\'t have any problems with precompiled kernel modules. As far as I know I also compiled Wireless Extensions into that kernel too, but I don\'t have a WiFi card to test it with. I don\'t know much else about WiFi.

Only OZ can do rotation on the fly because that has been added to Opie, which is opne source. All the other ROMs use the commercial version of Qtopia which is closed-source and only has that feature on the SL-Cxxx devices.

NAND is technically just the name of the type of Flash ROM that the Zaurus uses (Most of the circuitry is made up of NAND gates). So a NAND backup refers to making a complete image backup of of Flash ROM memory, which even included the protected boot loader partition that you can\'t normally see (kinda like \'ghosting\' a PC hard drive). Generally I would say that you do not need to do a NAND backup since normal flashing with the 5600 does not touch the boot loader (which also does the flashing) so you can always get back to a working Zaurus. The boot loader on one person\'s 5600 did get corrupted somehow not too long ago and they had to do a NAND restore to get it working again, but I would say that is a very very rare event. Also a NAND restore itself could brick your Z since it is overwriting the boot loader. But if you want you can find how to do it by searching the forums.

[lenk]

Thanks tumnus.

Do I still need to install the spectrum24 driver using the v1.3 Special kernel to enable my symbol card to work?

I know you can run Opie programs on Qtopia by just installing libopie. Is it possible to install Opie ontop of Qtopia?

Thanks

LK

[refriedChicken]

I ran Qtopia 1.6.2 on my 5600 and was able to rotate all for ways.  Other than a few apps not running it work quite well on top of tkcRom Alpha 3.

[lenk]

Thanks refriedChicken, I\'ll give tkcRom a try. Issit any stable?

[refriedChicken]

It seemed pretty stable, but I only played with it for a couple of weeks.  I can load Qtopia 1.6.2 on a more stable version of tck than Alpha 3.

[highfell]

I ran Qtopia 1.6.2 on my 5600 and was able to rotate all for ways. Other than a few apps not running it work quite well on top of tkcRom Alpha 3.

I am interested in \'onthefly rotation\' , but struggle with OZ (sadly)

Excuse my ignorance , but how do you \'run\' Qtopia1.6.2 on top of TKR ?

BTW I tried the Hybrid Rom (0/64) from Cacko but I seemed to run out of internal memory, there appeared to be a (32/32) version available but by the time I went to get that , Cacko had re-invented themselves and now I don\'t know where to get it from?

Do you flash the Zaurus as normal with TKR and then instal Qtopia by way of IPKs? Where can you download Qtopia 1.6.2?

Which version of TKR do you use?

Presume it would work on a 5500?


Thanks

Nigel Bamber

[refriedChicken]

I installed the ROM first, then I removed Qtopia 1.5 and copied Qtopia 1.6.2 in its place and modiefied the launch.conf file.  

Here is the link I used: http://www.apex.net.au/~twalker/qtpalmtop/

[hkphooey]

ROM from what I understand is made up of 3 files initrd.bin, updater.sh, zImage.bin.
initrd.bin = filesystem with all the apps
zImage.bin= Kernel
updater.sh= update script I presume

The names of these files change sometimes depending on which ROM you\'re trying to flash. eg sometimes zImage.bin is named zImage. Keep an eye on this to preserve your sanity.

1) From what I read, you can install a ROM and after that you can install any of the kernels above?

My understanding is that not all kernels will work with all ROMs. However if you find out different, let us know.

8) In order to use kismet and Wellenreiter what patch I need? orinico and hostap patch? Where and How to patch these drivers?

Kismet works on the 5600 Sharp ROM out of the box. Wellenwreiter does not, although it does work on the 5500, and on the OZ ROM. This is my experience anyway. Another person in these forums has got Wellenreiter to run on Sharp/5600 combo, so it might just be me.

9) How can I get the feature where I can change from landscape mode to potrait mode and vice-versa on the fly? I read that OZ can do that, can you enable this feature on other ROMs?

There is a rotation applet which can be used on the Sharp ROM and other ROMs I\'d imagine. You can find it on the www.killefiz.de site. This is much clunkier than the Opie implementation, and takes a good 20 seconds to rotate the screen. Ok in an emergency but not for general use.

[tumnus]

There is a rotation applet which can be used on the Sharp ROM and other ROMs I\'d imagine. You can find it on the www.killefiz.de site. This is much clunkier than the Opie implementation, and takes a good 20 seconds to rotate the screen. Ok in an emergency but not for general use.

You can rotate individual apps instead of rotating the whole of Qtopia (which I think is where you are getting your 20 seconds from - a possible restart time for Qtopia). Before you start an application you set the rotation desired using one of the rotation apps and then launch it. That way you can have a notes app in portait so it is easy to type using the keyboard and something like Opera in landscape.

[huw]

Hi in a similar situation as the original post had a SL5600 Linksys WCF12 for about 3 weeks I have tried multiple ROMS with varying degrees of succes . Looks like I will settle with the tkc ROM 2 rc1, works with my etrex GPS, IM on the hoof, Kismet even syncs with Outlook (not 2003 ) it is amazing & I have even neglected my SUSE desktop need to work out a way to sync with that.

All was fun & now I read Qtopia 1.62 I have read the link but can not corroborate the info anywhere else - lets call its experience . Can any one send me a link for more info on what it improves on the handheld ?

Thanks in advance