Installing OZ 3.5.1 and OPIE on a Zaurus 5600

, Will Kahn-Greene | share this (mastodon)
Note: This is an old post in a blog with a lot of posts over a long span of time. The world has changed, technologies have changed, and I've changed. It's likely this is out of date, the code doesn't work, the ideas haven't aged well, or the ideas were terrible to begin with. Let me know if you think this is something that needs updating.

I have a Sharp Zaurus 5600 that I bought when Amazon.com had them for like $260 (might have been $280). It was a price at which I decided it was definitely worth getting a handheld computer with a thumboard that was running Linux.

Anyhow, so I ended up with a minor issue... The Zaurus 5600 I got had a PXA 250 Intel chip which has some problem with caching or something like that. The PXA 255 chip fixes this problem. In order for Linux to work on the device, they slowed down the something or other. So I think the end result is that the 5600 with the PXA 250 is slower than the 5600 with the PXA 255. I'm really fuzzy on all of that mostly because I don't really care a whole lot.

The OE team put out the 3.5.1 OZ release a couple of weeks ago. I followed the instructions here in the OZ install guide and downloaded the files from here.

Everything seems to be working on the pda itself. OPIE is pretty neat--I'm definitely very excited. The ability to rotate the screen is awesome. It's definitely a lot more snappy than the Sharp ROM that comes with the Zaurus 5600 itself.

Next step is to get a wireless card. After that, I want to install some games for those dull moments in life.

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