Ubuntu ported to the Sharp Zaurus, might play Doom

by Brad Linder May 8th 2008

Sharp may have abandoned its Zaurus line of PDA/microcomputers. But that hasn't discouraged hackers who continue to add new functionality to these tiny computers. While the Zaurus handhelds already run a stripped down version of Linux, that's not good enough for some folks, who have decided to port full desktop operating systems like Ubuntu and Fedora to run on the Zaurus.

The 0.1 release of Ubuntu for the Zaurus is based on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn, although the developer refers to it as Frisky Firedrake. The custom distro lacks ~~some~~ most of the bells and whistles you'd get with a full Ubuntu installation, but that's to be expected since the installer weighs in at just 80MB. But it does include an X server, allowing you to load a window manager like IceWM or Enlightment E17. Future releases will likely inclde more of the functionality of a full Ubuntu installation, but if you've got a Zaurus C3x00 series device and a sense of adventure, you can try Frisky Firedrake 0.1 and try adding packages and customizing your environment yourself.

[via Engadget and Linux Devices]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

hazard said 10:05AM on 5-09-2008

That's just plain weird .. like trying to run OSX on Newton

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