OK.

I installed OZ 3.0 last night. I selected the 40-24 ROM, since it was the recommended one for newbies. My laptop dualboots XP and Linux and last night, Linux was booted. I didn't want to reboot to XP so I thought I'd attempt to download the required OZ files (zImage-5500-40memory-24storage.bin and initrd.bin) and move them to CF card using a PCMCIA-CF adapter. While I use a PCMCIA wifi card with no problems, I had problems getting my notebook to use the PCMCIA-CF adapter and CF card. So after about 90 minutes of playing with the notebook, I decided to boot XP instead.

I booted XP, downloaded the above files, moved them to the CF card then used OZ's instructions (you'll find those at the OZ site) to install OZ. It installed fine but after the install and reboot of the Z, I had a battery light that wouldn't stop blinking. If I unplugged the power cable, it would stop blinking but start again if I replugged the power cord. A hard reboot solved the problem.

Once I rebooted, OZ did it's obligatory 3-4 minute initialization, with its pretty background of a dinosaur. Once that was finished, I ended up with a very spartan-like palmtop. There's no web browser (like the stock Sharp ROM) but there is a terminal program to work by commandline.

I plugged in my D-Link DCF-650W CF wifi card and battled to get it to work. I got it working 22 hours later (about an hour ago). I had to reflash OZ 3 times until I got it working. The first time I tried to use the CF wifi card, I found that I couldn't even configure it, as the config utility was missing...well, it was there, only there were no wifi config options listed. The wifi card couldn't even be detected. I then reflashed and before booting up OZ, I took out the CF card that had the ROM and replaced it with the CF wifi card. OZ immediately noticed the card but wouldn't accept any DNS nameserver IPs (I hear this is a bug). I spent alot of my day trying to hunt for a HowTo or any info regarding this but there is practically NO organized information on how to set up wifi cards with OZ. I finally decided to post to the Zaurus-general mailing list and ask for help. I got a bit of info: This is a bug in OZ 3.0 and that you could bypass the bug by manually editing the Z's /etc/resolv.conf file and add the nameservers by hand. I tried this and it didn't work. I then reflashed and retried to enter the nameserver data thru the OZ GUI...still nothing. I reflashed a last time and decided to edit /etc/resolv.conf before doing anything else. I then set the wifi card's other data with the OZ GUI and tried to ping my gateway. It worked. I then tried to ping my Linux desktop. It worked. Finally, I was online.

About an hour ago, I tried to download fluxbox for the Z using OZ's package servers (PS) software. PS installed it and when I tried to install Konqueror next, I got a low memory error, stating I didn't have enough space to install much else. So, I removed fluxbox.

From what I understand, you can chose customized kernels for OZ and since I installed the 40-24 one, I was under the impression that I had 40MB of memory and 24MB storage. I'd thought I could store more than one app on the Z itself. I guess I'm going to have to rely heavily on my 128MB SD card (and my 256MB CF card, when I don't have the wifi card plugged in).

I guess that's enough for tonight. I'll continue to update on my OZ install during the week.

Cya