Well, I've tried flashing OZ 3.5.2 to my Zaurus (I got a CF flash card), ended up bricking it. Followed the directions on openzaurus.org, but it refuses to turn on. Has anyone seen that? I'm using the GPE image, if that means anything.

Did you do a hard reset immediatly after the flash was done? How long were the lights lit up for? If you can get it installed you won't regret it. OZ rules.

Yup, hit the full reset button after finishing, and nothing. While flashing, the lights were on for around 2-5 minutes, I'm using a SanDisk 128MB card.

You are flashing with a SD card?? I don't think that is likely to work. From what I have heard it is CF or bust as far as flashing goes. Additionally, while mine worked fine, I have also heard of problems with the Sandisk brand SD cards used in Zaurus devices. I switched to Lexar when I bought my 1 Gig SD card. Do you have a CF card available?

Oh sorry, it's a CF card, the SanDisk is.
By the way, the Sandisk CF card works fine with the Zaurus for me, I used the Zaurus to put the images on the card.

Ah. Try reflashing, and if that doesn't work, re-download the zImage and Initrd.bin files. I have had those corrupt on download before, when I used windows to retrieve them. Not sure if Windows was to blame, but I redownloaded them in Linux and the new ones worked fine. I can't remember if they give checksums for the images or not.

Wow, you're onto something there . The GPE image looks mint:
-rw-r--r-- 1 lavadevil users 14680064 Nov 29 12:45 gpe-image.rootfs.img
But the zImage reads 189KB, when they're 889KB on the OZ downloads. Thanks very much .
By the way, do you know if I can still get the files on the CF card using the Z file transfer (Windows)? I don't have a CF card reader ATM. Thanks again .

You can surely try (using the Z file transfer). Most of the problems I have had with file corruption in Windows are the ipk files. If that fails, clear the CF card, and use the Zaurus to download the files directly to the CF card, if you have internet connectivity on the Z.

OZ 3.5.2 is well worth this effort. And once I add the Openzaurus feed to my website, there will be three mirrors to choose from for packages. Using the OZ site feed is really slow (load). I am currently using the henges mirror until I get my site up.

Glad I could be of help. Let me know if you have any more issues, with the amount of time I have spent on setting up OZ on my 5500 in the past month, I'm sure I can help somehow.

Ok, I'll be sure to check your mirror . I'll have to try file transfer, as the Zaurus is totally inoperable right now (no booting).

I guess I have another problem, Pcghost (thanks for the help). I got OZ Opie working, and it's VERY good in comparison to the Sharp ROM. However, my root partition (using the 48 RAM 16 storage kernel) has only 1496KB free (hardly enough to install oz-compat), while I see something on /mnt/ram with 14M free, but I can't install programs there. Is there any way to fix that?

I install virtually everything to SD, as /root is too small to be of much use. For those things that must be installed locally, RAM is the place to put them. There are methods for moving /home to SD, which frees up some space on /root.

I keep the file system on the SD card, too. I use the CF card for media files, since the access speed is better. I'm still running OZ 3.2, which has been great. It's nice to hear the 3.5.x's are good too. I'm using a 64/0 setup; vlc plays my movies better that way.
BTW, the 5500 is limited to 256MB on the SD and 1GB on the CF; it's good to know that *before* you buy the cards.

--Barry

That can't be. I am running a 1GB SD (Sandisk) card in my 5500 right now. There may be problems with some manufacturers but I have yet to experience any problems. Mine is formatted ext2, so the limit may apply to fat filesystems on the cards.

Hey, that's cool! I did not know that. I don't remember where it was that I read about the limits I mentioned. I thought it was on the Sharp site; perhaps those are the "officially supported" maximum sizes. As I am at 70% used on my SD card, it is nice to know that larger sizes will work. Thanks!

--Barry

this is totally unrelated to issues but I have been looking to buy a zaurus but have only found them pre-owned any idea where I can get one brand new?