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Handhelds Operating Systems Software Hardware Linux

OpenZaurus 3.5.1 Released 17

Posted by timothy from the ahead-of-its-time dept.
toarney writes "This is a few days old, but I just noticed that OpenZaurus 3.5.1 was released on 9/19/04. It is the first release based on the OpenEmbedded build system. You can get it in Opie or GPE Palmtop Environment flavors. Now if I could just get that 'magic bullet' program to compile on my Zaurus."
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OpenZaurus 3.5.1 Released More

OpenZaurus 3.5.1 Released

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  • I was really impressed with Qtopia and OPIE when I first saw them, but was immediately put off by the reliance on the QT toolkit and the framebuffer. Then I found GPE (which, by the way, can run many qtopia apps recompiled for QT/X11), which runs on a miniature X server (kdrive). This combined with a special window manager and desktop environment designed for small screens works really well. I like it better overall than OPIE, although it currently has some bugs, and Zaurus 5600 support is still not so g

    • Re:GPE is really cool. (Score:5, Funny)

      by RevAaron ( 125240 ) <revaaron AT hotmail DOT com> on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @07:19PM (#10378927) Homepage
      but was immediately put off by the reliance on the QT toolkit and the framebuffer.

      I was really interested in running BeOS, but I was immediately put off by the need to have a videocard to see the GUI.

      I mean, there has to be some way to push the pixels onto the screen, where you can see them.

      I'd second the suggestion- GPE sucks, but so does OPIE. No offense to the developers, both aren't
      the best soil from which to grow mature PDA apps, and hopefully things will get better. Sharp's Qtopia and Opie have a lot of little problems and immaturity leaking out of it, and in some ways GPE is no worse, and in a few ways it's better. And it's definately fun. ;)

  • Recently I received a Zaurus machine and reflashed it with the pdaxrom [pdaxrom.org] image. However, I find almost every image for the Zaurus a bit inadequate - getting used to Debian on the desktop makes it frustrating not to have 10000 apps apt-get'able at your fingertips.

    However, I did manage to manually bootstrap a ARM-port of the Debian system over NFS and later downloaded it to a sundisk. I simply chroot to it, and then I have all I need including apt-get.

    There are some web pages that describe how to use D

    • In fact Familiar [handhelds.org] is partly based on Debian, using ipkg rather than apt / dpkg and command like:

      ipkg update
      ipkg upgrade

      will do exactly what you expect them to, coming from a Debian environment. It's true that there aren't as many packages though - around 800-odd in the current unstable feed I think, which includes gpe, opie, and a fair amount of other stuff.

      I'm very impressed with the OpenEmbedded [openembedded.org] build system too - it seems to be a very well-thought-out environment for cross-compiling to a customis

      • I installed 3.5.1 on monday, and I'm still having hastle with it, numerous things which should be done which arn't little oversights from software which hasn't had the chance to mature yet.

        The idea of puting debian on feels a lot nicer after having so much hastle just trying to get xmms to start, and having it segfault all over the shop :/
    • Long ago I install PocketWorkstation [pocketworkstation.org] which is a debian install for the Z. It seemed great, but the SD/MMC driver at the time always crashed whenever there were heavy writes, which was anytime you tried to install a package :-(
      In recent times I haven't had any similar crashes, so maybe it's time to scrap the latest OZ which I just stumbled upon a few days ago and just go straight back to Debian :-) ..bought a new 1GB SD card at Fry's for $80 (after rebate) recently, so disk space shouldn't be an issue!
  • I have a Zaurus Sl-5600; I have been waiting for them to release this for a while. I tried the GPE version first, it was really nice, but of course, as a beta, there are some problems. I then went to try the OPIE version, but accidentally overwrote the kernel instead of the root image on my flash card. Without realizing this, I flashed it, and now have an unusable $400 PDA. Any suggestions, other than not to be so stupid? It is a great OS, for a great PDA, though, when the owner is not an idiot.
    • Reflash it?
      • Yeah, I tried reflashing; it needs a kernel in order to run the flashing environment, and I overwrote the kernel, so that will not work. It is quite annoying.
        • That's odd, I've messed up flashing several times and it's always let me reflash it.
          • When I try to flash (sl-5600), it goes to the flash screen, I select a source medium (I use CF), and then it goes blank. It does not flash.
            • Oh, I've got a 5500. To flash it I just hold down C+D and hit reset. When I was first learning how to flash it, I used the wrong files several times. I once renamed the Ospack to zImage (first time flashing the sharp rom) and another time I copied an initrd file over the zImage.

              I'm actually surprised the 5500 is safer to flash than the 5600.

    • Re:I tried it... (Score:3, Informative)

      by the_maddman ( 801403 )
      You should be able to reflash it even with a dead kernel, you'll just need a CF card and reader for your PC. I've flashed the wrong kernel into my SL-5500 before and it keeps coming back for more, if you want to get rid of the 5600, just let me know.
      • The 5600 uses a different flashing system - it requires a kernel to reflash. This is nice because if you screw up an old flash, you can use the little environment to resore it. If, however, you overwrite the kernel, you are screwed.
        • Well, if that's true, and you can't get to the "maint screen" with the kernel messed up, I wonder what's up with the designers of this model. To build a system you can't recover from a bad flash... It's like the motherboards with soldered on bios chips. There's got to be a debug header inside the Zaurus somewhere, but finding the right tools would be tough. Good luck with it though, I know I'd hate to brick my 5500.

    • Re:I tried it... (Score:2, Informative)

      by mikecron ( 686696 ) *
      Follow these instructions: Link [myzaurus.com]
      • I will try that, but if it needs a kernel to do, it will not work. I thank you very much though as I will try that; I suppose that I should not respond to everyone who comments on my posts.

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