Re: [tlug] Linux Zaurus is very cool

[Joseph Essertier <essertier@example.com>]

Below is a summary of what information I was able to gather from
previous posts that relate to my 1st question.  None of them completely
answer it, although they all help a little.   

My 1st question was:
1. Has anyone successfully installed a Linux distribution on one, or set
> it up to double-boot?  How complicated is that?  I looked at the Wiki
> page on Zaurii, and a few of the Zaurus-compatible distributions

If you look at what I copied and pasted in below, you'll see that no one
says that they have actually been successful or been completely
satisfied with their dual boot setup, and no one tells us how hard it
was (at least not in terms that semi-newbies like me can understand).
Alain has had some success with KO/PI, but that's not a dual boot set
up, is it?  It's an alternative PIM that runs on the Sharp Zaurus
distribution of Linux.  In other words, I think that my question has not
been answered before.  I looked for an article that surveys the present
state of alternative Zaurus distributions, telling you what the pros and
cons are in a general way, but didn't find anything after 2 hours of
Google searching.

-------   

Scott asked a related question:
since this has a 6 gig HD in addition to the 2 
    scott> Gig CF card, is it possible to set up a dual boot and save
    scott> the initial OS- put open zaurus on the CF card?

Stephen gave this answer:
I don't think so.  In the C7/8xx series, you booted from flash.  I
think that's still true of the C3xxx, at least the root file system is
*not* on the disk, it's in memory.  So you have to flash the rom every
time you boot to a new OS.

------
Stu gave this advice:
Check out [url=http://www.oesf.org/forums/]Open Embedded Software
foundation[/url] for a lot info on what is available, you may have to
dig a bit from when they changed forum software but it should still
all be there.

But I got this message when I clicked on the link:
The requested URL /forums/]Open was not found on this server.

Stu also said:
I'm fairly sure that there are a number of options available for
dual-booting, but some of them have assorted problems - pdaX used to
have a probelm with the calibration of the screen being increasingly
off as you you move to the right of the touch-screen.

------
Alain let us know this:
OZ has been making progress but if you want a stable PDA I'm not sure OZ is at that stage yet.

And this:
If you can get KO/PI up and running, I have found that to be your best option.
--------

Based on what Stu and Alain said, it sounds like there aren't yet any Linux distributions 
that run on the 3200 in a stable way, but I'd like to confirm that, and get a sense of how 
unstable they are.  I mean, if there's a good chance of them breaking the hardware, I won't 
bother looking into it, but if it's just applications crashing once in awhile, then it's
worth looking into.  

Looking at the KO/PI web page, that does sound like one smart option though.
Thanks.
Joe


On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 17:00 +0900, Joseph Essertier wrote: 
> TLUG,
> 
> Well, I finally got a Zaurus SL-3200, and want to report that they are
> really cool.  Not like people on this list didn't know that.  There was
> a discussion several months back, and that's when I knew I wanted one.
> Thanks to the people who posted about Zaurus then.  It's everything they
> said it was, and more.
> 
> The screen is wonderful, the sound is great for a computer that small,
> moving files to and from Windows or Linux computers is fast and easy,
> the Japanese-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries are really
> handy, and the Calendar program is nice.  Switching between applications
> or opening new ones happens in a snap.
> 
> I have 3 questions:
> 1. Has anyone successfully installed a Linux distribution on one, or set
> it up to double-boot?  How complicated is that?  I looked at the Wiki
> page on Zaurii, and a few of the Zaurus-compatible distributions
> (including OpenZaurus) and it looks pretty tough.
> 2. Has anyone converted the help screens and menus to English?  How hard
> is that?  It would be nice to have them all in English, although I can
> get by with them in Japanese.
> 3. How about the Syncing software (IntelliSync)?  Someone said in a
> previous post that they were able to sync it with their Windows computer
> and a Linux distribution.  I have not.  I tried to do it while reading
> the manual last night for about 2 hours, and gave up in frustration.  I
> very rarely use Windows, but it would be nice to transfer email and
> contact info automatically, so I'll use Windows if I have to.
> 
> Non-Zaurus-related:
> It's been a long time since I posted.  I received some really valuable
> help a few months ago with setting up Debian on my generic PrimePC, and
> it's very 'genki.'  Thanks again for that.
> 
> For awhile I was using Ubuntu since almost everything worked for me in
> Ubuntu, but Debian had a few advantages, such as flexibility and
> customizability in my case, so I went back to Debian.
> 
> Thank you.
> Joe
> 
>