Hey All - First Post

[Onetrack]

Hiya all,

I've been reading this forum for the past few days after stumbling onto it from a google search.

I'm soon to be the owner of a never used zaurus sl 5500, my wife picked it up on ebay for me as a gift (ive been bugging her for one for the past 3 years.. she finally understands)

My main uses for the new unit will be very light surfing, chatting mostly (is there a VoIP app such as skype?). I'll be using gaim to connect to my msn/icq/irc accounts, some very light email and probably some warwalking. I have a CF wireless card on order from my local computer shop

When i'm just laying on the couch i wouldn't mind a game or two, probably mame or some such.

btw here is the ebay win, good price ?

EBAY ZAURUS

What I would like to install on this new toy is:

Kismet
Gaim
Zmame
Konquerer embedded
a PIM/Calendar app
Java (Jeode?)
ssh/scp/ftp/telnet (i will have so much fun with this playing nethack or mudding)
some console apps, maybe lynx/links  
Nomachine client (??)

I'm pretty sure from the ebay description that this will be a bone-stock / never used before device, probably running the earliest sharp rom there is.

Little background on me, I've been a unix sysadmin (solaris certified), played with various linux's, hp/ux and irix too. At the moment I have a WinXP box and a Suse 9.1 pro box, and I'm using NoMachine on suse as the server. I'd like to be wandering around my livingroom connected to suse.

SO.... before I run out of breath and bore you all (just excited i finally get to join the zaurus owners guild)......

Which Rom is for me?
Would a Lexar SD ram card (never intending on taking it out) be a good choice?
Can I use the zaurus while its docked or is there a wall socket adapter, as i understand it this device will suck its battery dry pretty quickly when Wlanning....

Cheers all,
Onetrackio (btw.. anyone want to donate me a c860 for testing?)

[digichris420]

Well as a semi-long-time SL-5600 user, and fellow newbie to the boards, welcome.  I am currently using OpenZaurus 3.5.2 on my 5600, and it's great.  You seem to know alot about linux, so you may want to go with one of the other roms.  My suggestion to you would be to check out each one, and see what best suits the features you want.  As far as the VoIP on the zaurus, I have wondered about that too, I have seen a prog at killefiz.de, but I never got it working.  Would VoIP be considered the same thing that ventrilo (a voice-chat program for gamers) would use?  That would be great to have.  And yeah, $210 is a good price for the zaurus, as last time I checked amazon.com, they were selling used 5600s for $349! Jeez, I bought mine for $299 from amazon about 11 months ago... how did the prices go up?? Maybe with the new release of OZ 3.5.2?  I think it's a conspiracy  

[Onetrack]

HI Digichris, thanks for the welcome.

The last week has been fun, I flashed my Z with 3.5.2 and ran into a boatload of trouble with it, wierd lockups that required tha battery to be removed, general freezing. Absolutely nothing would install from the package manager and i was getting a little frustrated (after 12 hours of playing with the Z)

The I saw a link to Hentges rom, its a custom rom built off of 3.5.2 with a cardfs file and about 30 megs of applications/libraries pre-installed. The first version RC5 had a couple issues with my wireless, but the master Hentges fixed that up and since RC7 which was released a day later my wireless netgear ma701na is working near perfectly - with the addition of his cardfs file and the libraries already installed, i'm able to install applications without much problem now from the opie feed, and have been wirelessly chatting / browsing with it.

I'm running out of space on root though, even though I'm installing everything to /mnt/card (SD) I think I'm down to 192bytes atm. Is it possible to do the 64-0 script ? Or does that need to be done with the cacko rom?

A couple small twitches now, MSN is not working quite right in gaim, although icq and irc connect fine. MSN just doesn't connect at all, and with no error message to guide me, .. well....

I Installed opie-mediaplayer2 as well which I believe is built off of Xine? The installer made a nice icon for me, it doesn't launch, and running it from the command line states it cannot initialize a window - so at least there I have something to go by.

So much thanks to Hentges, I'm really getting to know the Z over the past week, its pretty crazy what this little 5500 has the capabilities to do - a computer in my hand.... time to get some emulators going

Btw Digichris - thats 210 cdn

Cheers,
One

[sandtreader]

As a fellow newbie to this forum I'd just like to add my own welcome - hello  

Didn't know a thing about Linux until I started working for my present employers (I've been a technician for a company in Kettering, UK for the last 4 years.)  
We are training partners for SuSE, and I spend most of my time maintaining Linux based networks that we've implemented in local schools.

I too sourced my Z from ebay - about £120 (incl shipping) virtually new. I've been playing with OZ etc. but switched back to the Sharp 3.10. I recently bought a cheap wifi from ebuyer for about £20, which I've just got working - wot a great bargain.

Anyway, have fun on thses forums  

Best Regards

Dave (sandtreader)

[dz]

Hey guys, welcome to our forums

Hmm, this thread makes me wonder whether we should add a 'Introductions' forum for the new people to introduce themselves.

[ev1l]

Hmm, this thread makes me wonder whether we should add a 'Introductions' forum for the new people to introduce themselves.

Yes, so all the regular can just *not* go there  
I think newbie threads are a bit pointless, but we get them so rarely that they're hardly a problem. Newbie issues are never a problem, IMHO, everyone needs to start learning somewhere.