Zaurus Sync Software (Finally) Available for Linux
Tony Green writes "One of the biggest gripes of early Zaurus users (with much justification) was the fact that despite the fact that the Zaurus itself runs Linux, the only synchronisation software made available was for Windoze machines.
Trolltech have now released a desktop synch program (albeit a beta at the moment) for Linux, so at last Linux users can start doing what the rest could already do. Information at The Zaurus Software Index or Trolltech
One word of warning though, the MySQL installation on my Zaurus became unusable after using this; I haven't worked out exactly what it did yet, but I ended up having to completely re-initialise the Zaurus and then restore everything from my backups. So not recommended if you're running MySQL (unless you're feeling brave...)"
Note, to use the docking crade you have to modify the kernel for USB-ethernet support. Something I don't feel like doing. However, I set it up to do a network synch (I have a Netgear MA701 wireless CF card in my Z.), and it works like a champ.
Also note that the various PIM applications use an XML file format, and while it is mostly guessable, the format is not published. And TrollTech recommends not modifying them directly, anyway.
Finally, remember that you can always FTP etc. into the Z. for file management and other tasks.
Now, how do you sync with Mozilla's address book, Outlook's -and- evolution's Calendar, and Outlook's todo list?
This isn't news for 2 reasons:
...which reminds me - I'd personally throw down like $40 just to see the Z synch with Evolution. It's not going to happen from Trolltech or the Kompany for political and technical reasons (they'd rather have it talk to Aethera, I'm sure), but an independent developer could probably make some nice extra $$$ writing a stable, usable, reliable Evo Z synch suite. Here's hoping some one does this... I'm going nuts!
1) This is just another beta release - not the final version - the 1.5 beta has been out for months. (Possibly even from when the Z was first released, though I can't recall exactly)
2) (well, ok, this is more a personal reason, but...) Wake me up when it talks to Evolution...
(yes, I'm fully aware of the project at http://sf.net/projects/zesync - but it hasn't gone anywhere in months, sadly....)
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