Software for the Sharp Zaurus PDA

Besides the development of traditional software for GNU/Linux (x86), I’m interested also in the embedded GNU/Linux technologies, for instance with the creation of software for the SHARP Zaurus PDAs.

Qtopia 1.6.1 ROM image is - as you could imagine - an alternative ROM image for the Zaurus SL-5500 PDA (probably also for the SL-5000D model) featured by an updated version of the Qtopia environment (1.6.1 version) developed by Trolltech and by the new 2.4.18 Linux kernel provided by Sharp with their new ROM ver. 3.10. To install it, you should follow the same procedure of a standard ROMIMAGE/OSPACK image (described here ) such as the ones provided by Sharp; instead to create only one file Ospack, I decided to separate the distribution in one file for the Linux kernel (zImage, and another for the filesystem (initrd.bin), in the same way of the OpenZaurus project. Using the files zImage and/or initrd.bin instead of a single file OSPACK/ROMIMAGE avoid the risk to damage the Zaurus if something goes wrong, because these file don’t overwrite the boot system area.

This ROM image, besides, does not contain any proprietary software such as HancomOffice, Jeode, Opera, Sharp utilities and others, because of their restrictive licenses; but it includes qpdf and whatsuponz; the help files and the default games have been deleted because of the low available space. But kpacman has been added. All the applications included in this ROM are released with the GPL and all the related sources are available on the net, for example the sources of Qtopia 1.6.1 from Trolltech . Buy from Handango!

ZaurusDemo is a demonstrative application for this new line of PDAs, completely innovative with the design and with the technology; it has been awarded by Sharp USA for the 2002 Developers Challenge contest, ended on October 31, 2002.

ZaurusDemo 1.0 is free software, released under the license GNU GPL ver. 2 or any later version.

Downloads: zaurusdemo_1.0_src.tar.gz (source code); zaurusdemo_1.0_arm.ipk (binary package to install).

Screenshots:

Zaurus_check is a shell script which constantly monitors the connection/disconnection of a Sharp Zaurus SL series PDA to your own GNU/Linux PC; it configures automatically the needed network connections and manages a related KDE desktop icon for the user to launch the Konqueror filemanager in the right way to manage FTP file transfer with the PDA. It is complete of easy installation/deinstallation scripts which configure zaurus_check as service for GNU/Linux systems with init Sys-V (Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE, ecc.).

Download: zaurus_check.tar.gz (ver. 1.0).

OPIE Player 2 is the multimedia player of the OPIE and OpenZaurus projects, using the Xine codecs, developed for the last original Sharp ROM for the Zaurus SL-5500.

Download: opieplayer2_0.9.3_arm.ipk

Brightness applet from Qtopia 1.6 is the port of the applet to control the screen brightness included in the standard Qtopia 1.6 for the latest original Sharp ROM for the Zaurus SL-5500.

Download: brightness-applet_1.6.1_arm.ipk

New Clock is the port of the clock application included in Qtopia 1.6.1 (improved with alarm) for the latest original Sharp ROM for the Zaurus SL-5500.

Download: qtopia1.6-clock_1.6.1_arm.ipk

New Calculator is the port of the calculator application included in Qtopia 1.6.1 (improved with scientific functions) for the latest original Sharp ROM for the Zaurus SL-5500.

Download: qtopia1.6-calculator_1.6.1_arm.ipk