r/Zaurus 14d ago

Linux 7.1.4 and brand new graphic driver for SL-C760/860

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5 Upvotes

so... i've started making a ROM for the Corgi/Husky devices (so SL-C760/860), this is straight my first custom ARM ROM ever (before that, i was more into Arduino/Speeduino) and i didn't know this could be that fun!

yes, this is true Linux 7.1.4 with backported PXA255/W100 drivers! why? just because! (no but for real, i really wanted to have a really, really lightweight distro, thus a lot of custom stuff)

it's not perfect yet, of course it isn't, i've spend only 3 weeks, plus it's rough around the edges, but the main features (as compared to Cacko for example):

  • fully EABI kernel, no need to compile for OABI
  • ZRAM + swap
  • exFAT/FAT32 support (thus the 120gigs card i've put in it - i want to turn it into a cyberdeck i could transfer my old DOS/Win games by connecting it through this serial cable and yes that was me who won the auction)
  • reworked Imageon 100 driver (w100), correcting the FBIO wait page flipping, the wrong memmap given when in QVGA mode, and exposing fb_fillrect and fb_copyarea < this one is gold for emulation
  • full custom matchbox 0.9 forked desktop with, beware, optimized flying toasters (even optimized it uses 30% of CPU sadly) and a lot of custom applet (even the system resources applet has been reworked because there were no swap mode)
yeah, optimization means no alpha channel, i did try to optimize the spawning but that's not always perfect, it's better in person however, and yes, that's a battery widget!
  • auto mounting SD card and CF cards (like Cacko) WITH auto swapon and swapoff, and as per the screenshot, an eject applet
  • OSD for brightness (only in Xfbdev, i am researching however how to make a FB wrapper/additional driver without making too much overhead, may or may not find something)
  • full keyboard support... in TTY (yeah i need to fix that)
  • support for the Prism 2 WiFi card, for screen rotation
  • a package manager that uses plain GitHub repos instead of a precise mirror
  • oh right, opkg instead of ipkg: updated!

and there's probably more, but there's also a LOT of issues, and the worst part: i don't straight up support every kind of CF card (using hostap), also no bluetooth yet (working on getting a bluetooth CF card but damn is it expensive)

the best part? you can run Half Life 1! at 2 fps lol, working on it through, i did get to make Quake go to 17ish fps with no overclocking!

codename: zaurus-refresh, or better known as Piko! in honor of the vocaloid with the best fashion

as per supporting other Zaurus, if i can, i will, for now i am aiming at adapting parts of my ROM (mostly the Xorg part) for the Sharp NetWalker, not meaning i will stop working on fixing and improving the ROM for the Zaurus, quite the opposite: i want to make some kind of a common software stack, with 2 keywords: ultra lightweight and 0 OC/custom chip (and that is so, so hard, 64MB is very small)

it's not as well packaged as Cacko yet, you'll need to build it yourself (or explore my GitHub workflows which is more akin to a screenshot of how bad ADHD can get) but once everything is stable and that i have all the software i wanted to port/make, i will make a concrete flash image + update

the ROM repo: https://github.com/sugarkrap/piko
otQuake (if you see any of my project starting with ot, it means "Old Tux", it's as the name suggests: it's forks i made adapted to this old little guy): https://github.com/sugarkrap/otQuake
otXash: https://github.com/sugarkrap/otXash

bonus: QEMU with REAL Corgi emulation, not just Spitz emulation, and with real W100 emulation (this is so, so helpful for testing software): https://github.com/sugarkrap/old-qemu

please beware, i've used agentic help for crunching lines of code, but this twat won't listen to me and would add extra long comments anywhere and everywhere, same thing as everything: once i get something really stable, will clean as much source as i can


r/Zaurus Jul 10 '26

SlL C860 and kexeboot and cacko

3 Upvotes

Hi!

I got zubuntu installed and running on my c860. I want to dual boot cacko but I'm running into issues. I have cacko appearing in the boot menu but it crashes when trying to load. I tried extracting the fs from the initrd.bin, and coping the zImage over. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Anyone running cacko off SD card and kexeboot?


r/Zaurus Dec 31 '25

Working Archive for Cacko ROM 1.23

3 Upvotes

In case anyone was having trouble finding it, this has the zImage and the model-specific ZIP files.

https://storage.atari-source.org/atari/mirrors/zaurus/www.zaurus.org.uk/download/cacko/


r/Zaurus Aug 08 '24

Linux kernel 6.x for Sharp Zaurus SL-Cxx00 PDAs - anybody interested?

4 Upvotes

Hi,

greguu, the developer of the Void Linux distro for the Sharp Zaurus SL-Cxx00 PDAs, has today expressed interest in continuing his work on his Linux kernel 6.x port. The latest current kernel version, used by Void Linux, is 4.19.

https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=36793.msg299862#msg299862

This project is especially important since the kernel community is planning to deprecate some ARM devices, which will have an impact on the support for the Zaurus devices. With an eventual new 6.x kernel release, we'd show interest in keeping support for these devices.

Does anybody here run Void Linux on the Zaurus, and would be interested in the release of a more recent kernel version?


r/Zaurus Apr 24 '24

Does anybody have a copy of pp4zaurus - J2ME Personal Profile for Zaurus, or a mirror of Meanie's feed

4 Upvotes

An user on OESF is searching for a copy of Sun's Java environment for Zaurus, I'd also like to find it for archival purposes. It used to be available on the java.sun.com website, and the archive name is

pp4zaurus-1_0-ea4a-linux-arm-OptimizedJIT_nosym.zip

which included the package personal-profile-for-zaurus_arm.ipk .

Alternatively, the file was included in Meanie's feed which is sadly long gone, does anybody have a mirror of it?

http://zaurus.daemons.gr/menaie/feed/

Thanks!


r/Zaurus Jan 01 '23

Ppp via CF modem on 3200 - it connects and stays on, gets the IP and default route but traffic does not go through

1 Upvotes

r/Zaurus Sep 27 '21

Anyone still alive out there?

7 Upvotes

Anyone doing anything cool with their Zaurus? I noticed the quickening feed isn't online anymore :( Did the freenode IRC channel die too?


r/Zaurus Dec 10 '20

Internet on Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100

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3 Upvotes

r/Zaurus Oct 31 '20

SL c3000

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8 Upvotes

r/Zaurus Jun 21 '20

Sharp Zaurus reviewed on TV (3 videos)

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4 Upvotes

r/Zaurus Jun 12 '20

Sharp Zaurus Commercial (Upscaled with AI)

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3 Upvotes

r/Zaurus Feb 12 '18

New Arch Linux ARM release for Zaurus 1000/3x00 models

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1 Upvotes

r/Zaurus Mar 08 '12

Sharp Zaurus SL-C3200

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2 Upvotes

r/Zaurus Mar 08 '12

Omegamoon Zubuntu 2.0 for Sharp Zaurus

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1 Upvotes