Complete newbie pros cons list?

[mjh]

Hello,

I just got my Zaurus today.  SL-5500 off ebay.  Woohoo!

But I am a complete newbie.  I\'m a linux user, and very comfortable with a shell.  But I\'m faced with some choices in the zaurus that I\'d like to get some direction on.  So is there a pros/cons list of the following choices:

OpenZaurus vs. Sharp ROMs?
IntelliSync vs. QtopiaDesktop?

Are there other choices that I\'m not thinking about?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I should mention that I want/need to sync with Lotus Notes, if that makes any difference.

[freizugheit]

Welcome on board.

Stick to Sharp original ROMs and get yourself familised with the environment by tweaking and remember to backup your data at all times.

Once you are familiar with Linux and system administration, and upgrade your programming skills, then you can proceed to embark on flashing the other ROMs.   Make sure that you have a copy of the original Sharp ROMs for eventual retoration to its original form.

[drydiggins]

By now you\'ve probably heard of notessync.
http://www.notessync.com/
HTH

[derekp]

One thing, the sharp rom comes in two flavors, version 2.28, and 3.10 (or 3.13).  If your zaurus hadn\'t been updated, it probably has the older 2.x rom on it.  The 2.x version will work with notessync, but the newer rom won\'t.  The 3.x rom version is a bit better in some ways, it is basically similar to the rom that ships with the 5600 and newer models (kernel 2.2.18 v.s. the older 2.2.6, newer apps, etc).  Most of the more receint development is going to work beter with the newer rom, simply due to the similarities with the other zaurus models.  However, the new rom also has new pim apps, and they have a different (and poorly documented) data file format (called dtm).  The older pim apps  use xml to store their data, so you will find broader support for them.
Now OpenZaurus\'s pim apps use the older format, and I think that notessync has been updated to support OZ.
Hope this helps.

--derek

[Anonymous]

Linux Forever!  Welcome to the club!

You found the right place!  I\'m no expert, but with the help of these fine folks I successfully cross-compiled 2 apps.  One for GPL and one for work.  There is a ton of info here you will find useful.

Also check out these links for Zaurus software (I hit them often):
http://ipkgfind.handhelds.org/
http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/
http://www.zaurusoft.com/
http://www.linuxlinks.com/PDA/Zaurus/Software/

Here\'s a few other links that might be useful:
http://www.tuxmobil.org/Mobile-Guide.db/mo...2s8-zaurus.html
http://home.comcast.net/~tadaalgaard/zaurus/index.html
http://zaurus.kruss.com/

Enjoy!