Some time ago new kernel hacker joined team of people working on 2.6 kernel for Zaurus machines — Thomas Kunze gave us SD/MMC driver for collie and works on other subsystems to get this machine working. As result collie got added into list of Ångström supported devices and test images were generated.
Also during last time people were asking Koen Kooi when Ångström is going to be released. He usually answered that it depends on OpenZaurus release plans (OZ first).
But we lack developers to work on two distros in one time. Release of OpenZaurus 3.5.4/3.5.4.1 took me few months of work as I had to organize beta testing program, build images, fix bugs, find someone to work on documentation, build feeds. Then due to limited access to main mirror I had to work on upgrades feeds. Those tasks will be split to more people in Ångström.
As a result I was going to tell world that there will be no new OpenZaurus releases ever. But I did not wanted to sound like dictator — I asked other developers on openzaurus-devel ML what they think. There were 3 options:
- we release OpenZaurus 3.5.5 for all Zaurus models
- we release OpenZaurus 3.5.5 for Collie/2.4 only
- we close OpenZaurus history and switch to Ångström
During week twelve persons replied — no one chosen option 1st or 2nd…
So Ångström is a future for our machines — and many others already supported in OpenEmbedded. End of OpenZaurus does not mean that Zaurus models are obsolete or that users need to switch to pdaXrom or Cacko.
It needs work to create nicely working distribution which will use up-to-date technologies, will base on current software etc. Personally I do not even plan to look at 2.4 kernel for Zaurus any more — it was ‘created’ in such bad way that… no comment
What does OpenZaurus meant to me?
For me it was really nice to have OpenZaurus on each Zaurus model which I had in my hands. It started with SL-5500 collie which I bought for quite big amount of cash (about 2/3 of my month salary), then was C760 donated by Richard Jackson. Later I got SL-5600 and SL-6000 donated by anonymous donor from USA. During OEDEM I got SL-C3000 from Mickeyl and gave him SL-5600 instead. Now SL-C3000 is in Rolf Leggewie hands and SL-6000 waits for developer which would like to work on improving support for it (SL-5600/6000/C3000 are OpenEmbedded project devices).
Thanks to OpenZaurus I started to use OpenEmbedded. First as stupid novice, then advanced user finally one of core developers. Without playing with those systems I would not be the person which I am today. Since I left my previous work as PHP programmer I finally do what I like to do (and I am paid for it).
Without playing with it I would not have all those gadgets/toys which I have here.
I would like to thanks for some persons:
- Chris ‘kergoth’ Larson for starting work on OpenZaurus distro
- Michael ‘mickeyl’ Lauer for maintaining OZ
- Richard ‘rp’ Purdie for maintaining Linux-2.6 for all Zaurus models
- John Lenz for starting work on getting Linux-2.6 working on collie
- Dirk Opfer for Tosa part
- Graeme ‘xora’ Gregory for being one of most active Zaurus developers
- Koen Kooi for maintaining Ångström distro
- Scott Bronson and Simon ‘lardman’ Pickering for work on OpenZaurus documentation
- Thomas Kunze for work on SD/MMC driver for collie
- all other OpenZaurus hackers
For all time which they spend on getting Zaurus machines supported.