Hi Anton, et. al.,
I'm new to the Zaurus (had mine 'bout a week now) and also fairly new to Linux. I did my homework in the forums while waiting for my Z to arrive (a C860 btw) and played around a little with the Sharp ROM before deciding to flash it with Cacko 1.22.
Overall the experience has been very positive - I can see why you get such rave reviews from the other users. Good job! However, I thought I might also be able to add some input from the perspective a complete newbie. If nothing else it will give you a couple of laughs!
First, the Installation Notes as seen in the Readme. (I've added my comments in blue.)
1. Extract the 3 files - initrd.bin tools.tar updater.sh - to the root of your CF or SD/MMC card. (An explanation or link to the defn of "root" would be helpful for the truly novice user - luckily I wasn't that new - but I did question myself and worry if it had to be the top hierarchical structure or a directory called "root")
2. Make sure that Zaurus isn't plugged into AC power.
3. Remove battery for at least 5 seconds.
4. Replace battery (replace battery cover, lock cover), plug in AC power. (I didn't plug in the AC adapter until step 7 - it was a bit confusing since you had specified plugging in in steps 4 and 7! This worked for me, but I haven't played around with other possibile routines. I did wonder if you meant that the barrel end was to be plugged into the Zaurus here in step 4, while the plug would remain out of the wall socket until step 7...)
5. Press and hold the "OK" button on the keyboard.
6. Turn the power on, you should see the Japanese service menu.
7. Now Plug in the Power Cord. (You will get an error if it isn't plugged in!)
8. Select option 4 (flash/update).
9. You then have four options (1. USB, 2. CF, 3. SD, 4. Back)
10. Choose either option 2 or 3, depending on which media you put the files on. (A warning screen entirely in Japanese comes up at this point. You need to select Y to continue. Major panic ensued at this point - oh my god, what did I just tell it to do?!)
11. Select "5 Flash repartition", enter 27 when prompted for root partition size. (I used a larger partition based on the errors users were reporting in the forum...went with 28 - oh my!)
12. Flash will be repartioned and Zaurus will reboot. (I couldn't get my Z to turn off after this reboot. The prompt said 'Enter Runlevel' and the On/Off switch of the Z was unresponsive. I ended up pulling the battery to kill it. )
13. Repeat steps 2-10 again and wait for the menu start menu.
14. Now select "1 Install new ROM" and wait - Zaurus will reboot. (Prior to the Z rebooting, you are told that it is recommneded to format the user flash. Since you recommended it, I did it! Then the Z reboots.)
Second, I decided to go with the full Cacko 1.22, not the lite version, but it would be very nice to know what packages are included in this. I gathered from the 1.22 Lite readme file that the packages that had been excluded in the Lite version would be in the full version. But still it would be helpful to have a fully inclusive list of what's in the ROM. This may be too cumbersome though and my ignorance is showing...
That's about it for now. I hope that my comments are helpful. I've noticed an immediate improvement in using my Z with the new ROM and continue to play and learn with it. Thanks for all your hard work.
Jen
P.S. As an aside - do you know of a Frotz package (or other Z-code emulator) for the Cacko 1.22 ROM? I tried the 2.42_arm.ipk and 2.32_arm.ipk from the Zaurus Software Index, but they give me an error when I try to install...thanks.
