Author Topic: I realize that it is 2022, but I am hoping to setup PDA X ROM or a facsimile! :)  (Read 4764 times)

miskinis

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Hi Folks,

As I stated in the subject, I do realize that it is 2022, 18 years after the SL-6000 was released, and I was heavily involved with LINUX, embedded systems in general, as well as developing my own operating systems, graphical and development environments, and even spent almost a year working in somewhat of a private sub-contacting role to define and develop what would eventually become "Android" it seems for LG, through the SavaJe organization.  (The company was sold off to Sun Microsystems around 2004 or so, and we had produced the world's fastest JAVA system, which was a completely original, novel, and somewhat "radical" effort some could say, to produce a JAVA operating system and environment for handhelds and "phones", that was standalone, and was the entire operating system as well as a complete user environment, requiring no other OS underneath it.

Since the JAVA source code was obtained from Sun Microsystems in the early days of SavaJe, it was very fitting and appropriate that the entire asset-set and source code was ultimately returned to the domain of Sun Microsystems, and somewhat surprising to me that LG ultimately made the decision to "go with" a  LINUX-based OS for their Android offering.

Some of you may or may not remember the MISKINIX project that I embarked on, which was a complete proof-of-concept 3D Windowing system and multitasking environment that I developed for use on Palm and compatible handhelds from 2002-2004, which I suspended due to becoming involved with some more commercial and career-based endeavors.  In any case, I recently posted a bit of information and screenshots of the MISKINIX system on FaceBook, as some folks were interested, and I no longer maintain the miskinix.com website, and the PalmSide web site in Austria that originally hosted my MISKINIX forum, and "web site", was shutdown many years ago.

Anyway, I visited this forum once again today, not knowing if it would still be here, and what I would find.  I see that there are no longer model-specific forums for the Zaurus platform(s), but there is still a PDAXROM forum which was comforting to find.

I noticed that many of the sites such as "the grinder" which hosted the variant of PDAXROM known as PDAXQTROM was no longer available, and at this time, I do not know if I will every be able to find some of the software that I am searching for, or be able to contact some of the folks that I used to "chat with", if you will, in and outside of the forum.

I have recently acquired a Zaurus C-750, which seems to be functioning properly, and I plan to attempt to setup a PDAXROM, or some other X-based environment, for both use and development, as I find the pocket-sized and powerful computer system paradigm very useful, and I do not care much for "smart phones", and the "luggage" (such as surveillance capabilities) that they offer.

Anyway, I wanted to touch base with the community once again, and I hope that some folks will chime in.  I spent about an hour this morning searching for the "stock C-750" NAND backup file, but I became a bit disappointed when I saw that the one that was previously available had been corrupted and is no longer available.

Best Wishes, Happy Sunday, and I realize that this was quite a "long" post. :)  John
_John Miskinis_

illbay

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Hi John,

This website may be of use:

https://vminko.org/gentoo_manuals/zaurus_c1000

More specifically:

https://vminko.org/storage/zaurus/mirrors/nand-backups/

It sounds like you have a great deal of experience in this very interesting area.

Cheers

illbay

« Last Edit: April 10, 2022, 09:35:02 pm by illbay »

ArchiMark

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Hi John,

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your input and thoughts....

The Zaurus was great and remember using pdaXrom along with other OS's.....those were the days.

It was a few years ago that 'InSearchOf', the developer popped in and said he might do some updating on it, but unfortunately, don't think he ever did.

See https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=34492.0


Maybe you'll have better luck.

Best,

Mark
« Last Edit: April 10, 2022, 08:13:14 pm by ArchiMark »
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miskinis

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Hi, and many thanks to all that provide some information.

I saw that there were some C-750 NAND backup files there, which may work out very well.

I am a bit hesitant to just "jump in" just yet, as I have read about some of the issues with folks that have "bricked" their units, by using a corrupted NAND backup file.

I have only updated "ROMs" in the (somewhat distant) past on an SL-5500 and SL-6000, and not by using the NAND backup/restore facility, but by putting a kernel and some variant of a file system on a compact flash card, and using a different option in the diagnostic menu.

I recently acquired a "bargain lot" of CF type II 4GB Seagate micro-drives.  I have placed on inside the C-750, and although it shows up in Cacko LINUX's "System Info" application, in the "Devices" section, there is no mention of the LINUX device name there, or in the "dmesg" output.

I need to learn about how to use the card, and I am hoping that I can "use" or "install" varying OS systems, ultimately, by simply shutting down, switching out the CF disk, and rebooting. :)

Thanks again, John
« Last Edit: April 13, 2022, 10:40:20 pm by miskinis »
_John Miskinis_

Varti

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Hi miskinis,

it is always a pleasure for me to see users from the old Zaurus days returning here :) Thanks for your write-up of your project, it was an interesting read.
Regarding the NAND backups, Trisoft's support pages are still up, they have always been a reliable source of backup images. The 750's page, although in german, have the english ROMs available: http://trisoft.de/en_c750howto.htm

For the PDAXQTROM site, I'm setting up an archive of Zaurus webpages' mirrors and feeds on Elsix, I hope I'll be able to retrieve that site as well either from archive.org or directly from the author. Some mirrors are already available here:

https://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/brooknet.no-ip.org/zaurus/
https://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/cacko-crow/
https://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/zaurus_dev/
https://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/zaurus.reymann.eu/SSH-How-To-Linux-Zaurus-And-Windows-1_0.pdf
https://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/quake3/Quake_3_for_Zaurus.htm (in russian)
https://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/www.z4ck.org/digiforce-isbn-0955292905.pdf and https://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/www.z4ck.org/z4ck-book_final.pdf (two Zaurus-related ebooks)

Varti
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
SL-C1000 running Arch Linux ARM May2017, K30225 Wi-Fi CF Card, 64GB SDXC card
and many other Zauruses!

greguu

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Big Thanks Varti, especially for your efforts on preserving all this Zaurus related info and data.  8) 
Gemini-PDA (Sailfish X and Android) / LG Nexus 5 (Android 11) / Nokia N9 (MeeGo/Harmattan)
Sharp Zaurus C3100 (Borzoi) - Void Linux (voidz) Kernel 5.0.0 - Hardware (Buffalo CF LAN, DLink 660 CF WiFi, ASIX AX88772 USB Ethernet)

miskinis

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Thank You so much once again, and I need to get back to my C-750.

I have been messing around with it, and need to figure out how to use a CF-hard-drive, as I cannot seem to get fdisk to recognize it.  CF flash cards work fine though.  Also, mplayer locked up the machine when it crashed, and I had to reset it by removing the battery!  I do not know if the sound is supposed to sound so "tinny" and weak when using the built-in speaker, but I am amazed that it even HAS one. :)
_John Miskinis_