Chris Double: Zaurus

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 04:56:28 GMT

I've decided to move from using Radio Userland to a Blogger weblog hosted on my own domain. I've been using Linux for the past couple of years and it's proven too painful to keep using the Radio Userland software under Wine. No more posts will be added to this weblog, or any of its categories.

The new weblog is here and the atom feed is here.

Sat, 26 Feb 2005 03:17:33 GMT

A review of the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000. This is very similar to the SL-C760 Zaurus but has a 4GB hard drive.

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 05:24:57 GMT

Previously I'd mentioned that the Billionton Bluetooth CF Card with manufacturer id 0x022d, 0x2000 didn't work on the Zaurus. It seems that this problem has been fixed in the latest pdaXrom (1.1.0 RC8), where that card works fine with the bluez software from the standard feed.

Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:41:21 GMT

I've compiled Portable.NET for the Zaurus running pdaxrom. This enables you to run some .NET programs on the Zaurus, including GUI programs that use System.Windows.Forms. You will need to install, in the following order:

treecc_0.3.1alpha_arm.ipk
pnet_0.6.7alpha_arm.ipk
pnetlib_0.6.7alpha_arm.ipk
pnetc_0.6.7alpha_arm.ipk

Note that these are quite big, totaling about 18MB so I recommend they be installed in /mnt/user. I used the recent CVS version from yesterday hence the reason I marked them alpha.

Some compiled examples to try are in pnet_samples.tar.gz. To run the executables use 'ilrun'. So to run the FormsTest.exe program use:

ilrun FormsTest.exe

'cscc' can be used to compile C# programs on the Zaurus. The pnetc module is included which enables you to compile some C programs to .NET assembly on the Zaurus as well. See the Portable .NET site for information.

Sun, 18 Apr 2004 01:42:46 GMT

I've compiled wxWindows v2.5.1 for the Zaurus PDA running the pdaxrom. The wxwindows_2.5.1_arm.ipk file is 4MB. Some examples from the distribution are in the 130KB wx_examples.tar.gz file. Untar the examples in any directory after installing the ipk. It includes bomb (Minesweeper), Life (Conway's Life) and a fractal mountain drawer.

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 01:15:20 GMT

pdaxrom version 1.0.5 is out with a number of fixes including automatic screen rotation and a working hardware on/off button. Also available is the SDK for developing applications.

Sat, 20 Mar 2004 20:50:11 GMT

Kartik Agaram has a RSS news aggregator written in Python that displays all articles in a single HTML page in reverse chronological order. It's called 'Read What I Read' and includes source. A nice feature of this sort of aggregator is you can run it on your desktop and copy the HTML over to a PDA and read it at your leisure.

Tue, 16 Mar 2004 06:11:42 GMT

KO/Pi for the Zaurus is a great PIM application. A pdaxrom compiled version is available at the pdaxrom feed. A version for Linux and Windows is also available.

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 00:36:52 GMT

Performing a variation of the 'Symbian SDK on Linux' I've been able to get the Series 60 SDK mostly working natively on the Zaurus handheld. Compiling GCC on the Zaurus took a bit of time though!

This allows me to compile and build Symbian applications for the phone and transfer them to it via infrared all via the PDA.

Unfortunately there is one step not quite working. Some of the utilities from the SDK require Wine to run. I've been able to get all but one to compile and work correctly under Linux instead using the source supplied by Symbian. The one that doesn't quite work is 'rcomp'. It runs fine but doesn't generate unicode resource files which are required by Series 60. If I compile the resource files on my desktop using Wine and copy it to the Zaurus then everything works fine from then on. Hopefully I'll be able to work around this.

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 00:30:29 GMT

OpenOBEX compiled for the Zaurus running the pdaxrom is available at openobex_1.0.1_arm.ipk. This includes the irobex_palm3 tool for transfering files between a cellphone and the Zaurus. I didn't compile bluetooth support in, only infrared, as I don't have bluetooth installed, and don't have the bluetooth development libraries. Donations of a Zaurus compatible bluetooth card would be gratefully accepted.

Wed, 10 Mar 2004 02:30:12 GMT

I've upload a compiled version of IoVM for the Sharp Zaurus running the pdaxrom. The ~64Kb file is at iovm_2004.02.28_arm.ipk.

Tue, 09 Mar 2004 00:30:09 GMT

I've recently started using Chicken Scheme again, trying to get an onboard development environment for the Zaurus. One of the more recent additions to Chicken is the 'Easy Foreign Function Interface'. This enables you to embed C or C++ code inside your Scheme code and it gets converted to Scheme automatically. The example given in the manual uses Chicken Scheme to write a Qt application. The Qt classes get automatic wrappers generated using the object system (TinyClos). So the actual Scheme code looks like:

	(define a (apply make <QApplication> (receive (argc+argv))))

	(define hello (make <QPushButton> "hello world!" #f))

	(resize hello 100 30)

	(setMainWidget a hello)

	(show hello)

	(exec a)

	(destroy hello)

	(destroy a)

This works on both the Zaurus and the main PC. The code that automatically generates wrappers looks like:

#>?

    class QWidget

    public:

      void resize(int, int);

      void show();

};

    class QApplication

    public:

      QApplication(int, char **);

      ~QApplication();

      void setMainWidget(QWidget *);

      void exec();

};

    class QPushButton : public QWidget

    public:

      QPushButton(char *, QWidget *);

      ~QPushButton();

<#

The #>? and #< are indicators that embedded C++ code follows.

Tue, 09 Mar 2004 00:03:50 GMT

One of the nice improvements in the latest pdaxrom is the battery applet reports a better indication of remaining battery time. In all prior ROM's for the Zaurus the applet only had 4 states: full, half, about to die, dead. This new rom reports at 1% intervals. Very nice.

Mon, 08 Mar 2004 01:14:58 GMT

A new version of the Zaurus pdaXrom is available, version 1.0. Also some new packages in the feed including mplayer and a volume control applet.

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 20:11:17 GMT

This post on the Zaurus User Group forum benchmarks various SD card and CF card settings. There is a kernel setting, CONFIG_FS_SYNC, which is normally enabled. By disabling it there is a large performance increase when using the SD card and stability of the card is better. My SD card tends to get corrupt, requiring an e2fsck, if i do large writes and reads from the card. It sounds like disabling this option may fix it.

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 04:10:59 GMT

I've compiled Gnokii v0.6.0 for the Zaurus running the pdaxrom. Only the command line tools at present. The ~2.5 MB package is gnokii_0.60_arm.ipk and a sample configuration file gnokiirc.gz. Uncompress the configuration file, copy it to ~/.gnokiirc and edit it for your phone type.

To use it via infrared, start irda on the Zaurus using '/etc/rc.d/init.d/irda start' and start the modem on your phone. On the Nokia 3650 it's in 'Connect/Modem'. Then the command line tool 'gnokii' should work fine.

Bluetooth support is compiled in but I can't test it. You'll need to install the bluetooth libraries on your Zaurus.

Sat, 06 Mar 2004 04:54:54 GMT

I've uploaded an IPKG for the Blackdown Java JDK v1.3.1 for the Zaurus. I've tested this on the pdaxrom but it should work on the Cacko X11 rom as well. You can download the ~16MB file from blackdown-jdk_1.3.1_arm.ipk.

Once installed, set the JAVA_HOME directory to point to either the '/usr/local/j2re1.3.1' directory or '/mnt/card/usr/local/j2re1.3.1' if you installed it on the SD card. Also add the 'bin' subdirectory of that directory into your path. Once this is done you can run 'java', including Swing applications. The commands to change the environment were:

  export JAVA_HOME=/mnt/card/usr/local/j2re1.3.1

  export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

I have a problem with my SD card in that it gets corrupted when doing sustained lengthy writes to it. This caused problems installing the IPKG. As a workaround I ran a background process to force a sync during the install:

  while true; do sync; sleep 1; done &

I successfully ran the Java Swing Notepad example with this.

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 08:28:34 GMT

I've compiled V1.33 of Chicken Scheme for the Zaurus running the pdaxrom. You can download chicken_1.33_arm.ipk here. It is approximately 7.5MB in size. Once installed using qpkg or ipkg, run 'chicken-setup' to set things up then use the Chicken Scheme interpreter command 'csi' to run it.

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 03:02:44 GMT

I installed the pdaxrom on my Zaurus last night. It is significantly faster than the previous Cacko X11 ROM. I'm very impressed with the speed. Even Mozilla Firefox is usable. My wireless card wasn't supported from the install (Buffalo Airstation) but the pcmcia patch from the IPKG feed added support.

The pdaxrom is even closer to a 'real' Linux compared to the previous version, with a more standard directory structure, and the ability to exit from X11 to console and back. The default user interface is a bit ugly (It uses Matchbox) but that's configurable from what I understand.

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 05:45:04 GMT

JamVM is a JVM implementation designed to be small and portable. The stripped executable on Intel is only 80K. It has recently been ported to the Zaurus.

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 23:03:10 GMT

Mozilla Firefox is now available for the PDA X Rom.

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 23:01:10 GMT

The Cacko X11 Rom has a new home and a new name. It is now the PDA X Rom. A new version has also been released.

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:14:02 GMT

Slashdot discovers the Cacko X11 ROM for the Zaurus PDA's.

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:48:08 GMT

New verison of Gentoo for Zaurus includes ability to convert to standard IPKG for install.

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:47:02 GMT

XServer for X11 ROM with accelerated driver for the graphics chip in the Zaurus.