[TriLUG] Linux PDAs

[David A. Cafaro]

On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 15:00, Michael Thompson wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 14:49, David A. Cafaro wrote:
> > What exactly do you want to use it for? 
> 
> I want it as a standard PDA (address book, etc) and I want to be able to
> use ssh and the VNC client over wireless, which I guess is good to go! 
> A portable media (MP3,OGG) player would also be a nice feature, from the
> specsheet I see it can already to MP3.  Would be nice to be able to run
> irssi as well, although if ssh works then I can ssh to home and "screen"
> in anyway...

In my opinion the standard PDA apps of the zaurus are resonable.  I'd
say Palm OS does 60-70% better and the Zaurus does 30-40% better,
otherwise somethings I like better on the Zaurus but a few more things
were better on the Palm.  Either way I still like the Zaurus, and it
works for my needs in the PDA arena.

The big advantage is that you can do the SSH and VNC stuff, plus play
MP3's and if you install XMMS you get just about any thing else you want
to play.  And I personaly love the keyboard, use it exclusively for text
entry (better than any handwriting recognition, though it does do pretty
well at that).


> Does that mean the the installed OS will not sync, requiring an
> alternate OS (distro) install?

The stock ROM (Sharps OS) will not sync with Linux or Mac OSX.  It will
sync with Windows.  To sync with Linux you would need to flash a new ROM
with an alternate ROM (Distro OS).  You can choose from OpenZaurus,
Trolltech ROM, and a few others, though those two seem to be the best. 
Someone is working on reverse engineering the sync so as to get the new
Sharp ROMS to sync with Linux, but that's still a work in progress.  It
amazing how well and how bad Sharp has handled the Linux community, they
are trying, but keep missing the mark....  I just haven't worried about
syncing for a while, I only miss it once in a while.

-- 
David A. Cafaro <dac(at)cafaro.net>
Sys Admin to User: "You did what?!?"