New 512Meg SD card - which ROM for me?

[torpor]

Hi All,

I just got a 512Meg SD card for my SL5500, and I now want to put -everything- on it.  I want to boot from it, use it as my home dir, and have SYNC_IO turned on/off properly for best performance.

So, which ROM is for me?  Is there a particular ROM which would be best for this scenario: /home on SD, all 64megs RAM available for apps, swap on SD card ...

Any help anyone can provide is greatly appreciated.

[grey_moon]

sniffle i am so jealous, but then again im only using 5% of my 256

[grey_moon]

but is this what u are after?
http://pocketworkstation.org/

[torpor]

what i\'d really like is to be able to compile my own kernel, put it on an SD card, and boot from it.... is that possible?

the 5500 is a great machine, but all the ROM options are really a confusing pain in the ass.  someone in this community, who knows what they\'re doing, needs to collect all the details from all of the forum posts about all the current ROM\'s, summarize into one big \'ROM Encyclopedia\' document, and keep it updated.  Its /such/ a hassle trying to work out which ROM has the things you need on it ...

For my purposes, I need a custom kernel with pre-emptive patch, SYNC option off, /home on my 512Meg SD card, a full onboard compiler environment, and the ability to port stuff from my Linux desktop to my handheld.  I know this is possible, and feasible with the 5500, its just a matter of wading through the countless /bad/ docs on the subject and trying to work out answers to problems from the forum replies ... gaarrggh, confusing!

but, hopefully, i\'ll be able to get a full, complete system running on my 5500 soon enough... i really want to be writing code for this environment, not perpetually setting it up!!!  :|

[Nightruler]

I also have a 512mb SD card coming I just got off ebay.  I have been waiting to change my ROM till I get this and trying to figure out what would be the best one to run.  So far I\'m looking at OZ becuase of the kernel options they have to allow the full 64mb to be used as RAM.  This card is going to be left in the Zaurus all the time so I don\'t feel I need to use any of the internal memory for storage, expect for the space for the ROM.

I agree with the lack of information about these ROMs, even going to the developers sites gives little information at times.  On OZ I spent a good few hours rolling though the FAQ and still not sure about everything.  Because I\'m using my Zaurus for work I don\'t want to have a lot of down time to \'play\' with ROMs, I want my change over to quick and sweet as it can, the choice I make is going to have to be final as I can\'t afford to keep switching around.

Have you found any good docs for using an SD card for all of your storage?  

One feature I\'m very much looking for is to be able to \'switch\' beteen open apps, like an Alt-Tab.  I can\'t belive such a usefull feature hasn\'t been hacked in here yet, when using a keyboard it\'s a real pain to keep having to swtich between the keyboard and the stylus just to move between apps, terminal windows and the like.

I\'m using a 5600 btw and OZ doesn\'t seam to support using the full flash for RAM on this for some reason, let alone much support for the 5600 in general it seams.

[ran]

what i\'d really like is to be able to compile my own kernel, put it on an SD card, and boot from it.... is that possible?

Nope:  the 5500 can only boot from internal flash.

The \"pocket workstation\" (debian-based) system does a \"pivot root\" to the SD/MMC after booting,  but it still uses the kernel installed internally.

summarize into one big \'ROM Encyclopedia\' document, and keep it updated.

Some of that has been done on this page.

Since it\'s a wiki,  you\'re free to fill in any gaps you find  ;-)

For my purposes, I need a custom kernel with pre-emptive patch, SYNC option off, /home on my 512Meg SD card, a full onboard compiler environment, and the ability to port stuff from my Linux desktop to my handheld.

I know some people have been playing with pre-emptible kernels for the C-series machines,  but I\'m not sure whether anyone has done one for the 5500.  The wiki linked above will tell you about some of the ROMs that use SD for /home.  None of them explicitly say they have the pre-emptive patch.

What sort of apps do you want to port from the desktop?  If they\'re GUI,  you may need to look into a ROM with X support.

[derekp]

what i\'d really like is to be able to compile my own kernel, put it on an SD card, and boot from it.... is that possible?

There really isn\'t much of a need to dual-boot kernels.  All of the current zaurus roms are based off of sharps modified 2.4.18 kernel.  And, since various device drivers (such as the SD driver) are only available for that kernel, we are pretty much stuck with that one.
What you\'d do is compile a custom kernel with all the options turned on that each of your roms needs.
As for dual-booting multiple distributions, I\'ve got a thread over on the zaurus forum about dual-booting.  I\'ve put together a couple of scripts, on that modifies your currently-instlled rom to support dual-boot, and another one that takes OpenZaurus, and puts it on your SD card in a format that can be booted from.  However, these are written for the 5500, and need some hacking to work on the other models.