Zaurus Basic Mini-tutorials

I started out thinking I would write one very short tutorial on how to use a console to make life with a zaurus a little easier. But Zaurus Basics: A Console Tutorial turned into a bigger project than I expected. So, here you are with a general tutorial page instead, but never fear, if you want to find that original page, just click here.

If you want to quickly skip the rest of this guided introduction to the tutorials and how-to's, and just see the list, then click here.

The following are primarily writeups of the things I have learned that were either hard enough to understand the first time around, or took a lot of work to figure out, which I hope you will find helpful in increasing your fun and productivity with a Zaurus or other embedded Linux device. You also may want to check out my Scripts and Packages sections, which also contain tools that might simplify many tasks.

Why get or use a console if you are a GUI person? read my Console Basics page to find out how and why.

If you need to learn basic Linux, then start out with the user-friendly resources I have listed in Linux Newbie Resources

For longer, more detailed introductions to Linux, see my Listing of Relevant Free How-to-Guides from tldp, and check out my reviews of some of these tldp guides, to help you decide which tldp guides are right for you.

If you need hints on how to prevent or resolve problems with installing IPKs, check out my IPK Installation Guide.

If you are suspicious that an SD or CF card has gone bad or is corrupt, then see my discussion about Checking Expansion Card Integrity.

If you want an easy way to enter long commands from the console that you use often, here are some examples of personalized aliases.

If you get tired of typing the same set of commands over and over and over again, consider putting them into a simple bash script. Here are a few examples of simple scripts I use to cut down on typing in the console.

And stop working so hard hunting for files on your Zaurus! If you want to be able to find a file which you know contains a certain keyword or phrase, you can use the Linux grep command to find it if you know the exact directory it is in. But if you do not know the exact directory, then check out my writeup about installing and using rgrep.

If you are having problems with images that will not open up on your Zaurus, then consider installing an alternate image viewer such as this one from the zfax package, and read my suggestions for what to do to make images Zaurus friendly here.

If you want to extract just one or two files from Sharp's backup, check out my example here. Or, to extract the contents of just one directory from Sharp's backup, then look at this example.

If Opera or some other application has messed up your Network applet GUI in the taskbar, and the GUI only gives you the option to "Connect" when you need to disconnect, then read my explanation about how to use qstop.

If you are annoyed by tty processes that come out of nowhere, or want to speed up your Zaurus, see my instructions on how to disable respawning of ttyS0 on ROM 2.38 here.

If you are having trouble with things like simple file management, package installation, or backing up your Zaurus, because of the application itself telling you it failed, click here.

Remember to check back here in a month or two, to see what else I have added to this section!

sdjf's How-to's and Tutorials

Revised December 27, 2011