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Syncing Your PDA w/ Obscure O/Ses?

Posted by Cliff on from the using-your-platform-of-choice...whatever-it-is dept.

Nomad7674 asks: "I am part of a team helping to build a site for discussing SmartPhones (i.e. combo cell phone and data function devices). We are trying to become a one-stop shop for SmartPhone-related information and have run up against one brick wall that the Slashdot community may be able to help with. We want to document every operating system that can be sync'd with a Palm or PocketPC or Symbian device. We already have information on the biggies (Apple and Windows), on the moderates (Linux and the Unixes) and a few of the more obscure including Amiga and BeOS. But we seem to have exhausted the searches of Google, Alta Vista, etc. and the knowledge of the general community elsewhere. What experiences have other Slashdot readers had with syncing their Palm, PocketPC, or other PDA device with obscure OSes?"

25 comments

  1. Which by Gryftir · · Score: 1

    Nomad,

    If you could give some examples of OSes you want information on, you will be more likely to catch the eye of the community that supports them.

    Gryftir

    --
    http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
  2. Get a clue. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use Linux on my desktop every single day. The machine doesn't even have a Windows partition. You don't come to a place shouting "you! weirdo! I need some information about you! jump!" From my POV people who use Windows are the freaks, you know?

    1. Re:Get a clue. by david+duncan+scott · · Score: 2, Insightful
      So the guy says
      We already have information on the biggies (Apple and Windows), on the moderates (Linux and the Unixes)

      and you read that as "Weirdo"?

      Here's a clue for you: as a desktop OS (and I think we can safely assume that people are not syncing their PDA's on the database machines in the server room), Linux is, so far, moderately successful at best, in the sense of popularity. In fact, I'd say that "moderate" is a generous rating. There are probably tens of thousands of regular Linux desktop users, which is a lot, except that there are millions of Windows desktop users.

      He's not calling Linux obscure. He's saying they know about Windows, Mac, and Linux et al, and now they want to know about obscure OS'es, people who sync their PDA's with a ZX-81 or slide rule or something.

      --

      This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander

  3. Don't forget... by Tom7 · · Score: 1, Funny

    I've synced my Palm III with PalmOS.

  4. Define "Sync" by dead_penguin · · Score: 1

    The biggest limiting factor you're going to run into has nothing to do with core driver availability for your desktop OS, but what exactly you're trying to accomplish.

    If all you want is the ability to transfer binary data between the PDA and the desktop, then any platform with a serial port should work.

    If you want a bit more, you'll need a platform that the pilot-link libs + utilities can be ported to. That should give you the ability to "sync" data to and from specific programs on the Palm either by capturing raw text or the Palm's binary databases on the desktop. This may be sufficient to hack something that will work with some of the address-book/mail/PIM/whatever applications on the desktop. It will be a hack, it will be crude, but it may work. Calling this "supported" is a bit excessive though.

    If you want full support for syncing the PDA with most of the major applications already found on the desktop, then you're limited to Windows + Mac, and possibly Linux if you're happy with how well the KDE or Gnome desktop applications sync with the PDA.

    Of course, if you want support all for third-party apps that the user might install (either on the PDA or the desktop), then you're basically limited to just Windows.

    Pick how much support you want and how much you need, and if you're not happy with where that leaves you for desktop OS choices, you'll either have to re-evaluate your needs or do a lot of hacking to get things to work.

    --

    It's only software!
  5. How about OS/2? by Tower · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not all that obscure... really...

    There is a nice page with some apps at http://www.perelin.de/stellarcom/palmstuff/.

    --
    "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  6. Heretic! by pmz · · Score: 1

    But we seem to have exhausted the searches of Google, Alta Vista, etc.

    Then what you are looking for doesn't exist. Now kneel down and plead for your soul in front of the almighty Google! Google knows all! Google is the provider!

    --
    Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
  7. freshmeat by BenTheDewpendent · · Score: 1

    checkout freshmeat I am faily certain I have seen projects meant to sync a palm with BeOS and AmigaOS... I may be mistaken though. You also may want to try palmgear as they have a huge repository of palm software.

  8. Linux 9.0 and Visor Handspring by elsPrime · · Score: 1

    I've tried a whole bunch of things, and I still can not get my Handspring to synch with any program currently on Linux. I've seen a few web links that imply the author had accomplished this task, but I am unable to reapeat it.

    --
    User MUST show picture ID
    1. Re:Linux 9.0 and Visor Handspring by hacker · · Score: 2, Insightful
      You're probably doing something wrong. Post your request on the lists dedicated to your syncing apps, and we can help (gnome-pilot? jpilot? pilot-link? kpilot? PilotManager?)

      There are many thousands of users happily syncronizing their PalmOS-based PDAs on Linux and BSD, using serial, IR, and USB connection methods.

    2. Re:Linux 9.0 and Visor Handspring by edwazere · · Score: 2, Funny

      Probably has somthing to do with you posting from quite a few years in the future...
      Last time I checked Linux was at version 2.4 for the stable tree and 2.5 for the unstable.

      If however you mean Redhat 9 or Mandrake 9 or somthing similar then that's a different matter.

      --
      -- You ain't seen me, right?
    3. Re:Linux 9.0 and Visor Handspring by elsPrime · · Score: 1

      oops....yeah, Red Hat 9.0. Just had a wisdom tooth removed -- musta removed some of my wisdom too.

      --
      User MUST show picture ID
    4. Re:Linux 9.0 and Visor Handspring by bacchus612 · · Score: 2, Informative
      You probably need to recompile your kernel. Brief instructions:
      cd /usr/src/linux && make mrproper && make menuconfig
      This will start the kernel configuration program. You should probably read up a bit on the various options, as there are many, try Kernel-Howto for more info... make sure you include: USB Support USB-Serial USB-Visor just go through every menu option and look for things that sound like they apply to you, and when in doubt compile as a module. Save the configuration and exit. Then:
      make clean && make dep && make bzImage && make modules && mv /boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage.old && mv /lib/modules/SOMETHING /lib/modules/SOMETHING-old && make modules_install && mv /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot
      now, if you use GRUB for a boot loader you should be ok to restart the computer and see if it worked. If you use Lilo:
      /sbin/lilo
      Er, I think that's all you have to do, I use GRUB personally. Now reboot and see if stuff works..you might have to load the module after rebooting:
      modprobe usb-visor
      Worst case scenario, boot with a rescue disk, and rename the .old files to their original names (deleting the failing replacements.) Look at the kernel-howto linked above, and: Handspring-Visor-HOWTO which goes into much greater detail. It's really not that hard.
  9. jSyncManager for PalmOS devices by a1291762 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's a project called jSyncManager that will sync PalmOS devices with a Java-enabled platform. It was originally written to support HotSync on OS/2. It's Open Source too.

    http://www.jsyncmanager.org/

  10. XML by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please use an open method of transfering the data from the computer to the unit. XML would be ideal for all text transfers, and you could slip into a binary-mode for files (if you have the need.) This would allow anybody to add support for any OSes you miss.

    In the early Palm days, and before the outside GNU/Linux attention, I was dying for Palm syncing software, and would have wrote my own if it was of cleaner talk.

  11. Re:RH Linux 9.0 and Visor Handspring by elsPrime · · Score: 1

    hmmmmmm --- I've gone through EVERY variation of the KDE pilot applet, plus every variation of the Gnome 2.2 applet.... my Visor goes through a USB 1.0 cradle, and I can not get Linux to "see" it. I'll keep on tryin'. Thanx

    --
    User MUST show picture ID
  12. Re:RH Linux 9.0 and Visor Handspring by hacker · · Score: 2, Informative
    Have you tried meeting up with us on irc for some "real-time" help? Check the pilot-link.org homepage for details (it's very obvious).

    Have you read README.usb yet? It should get you started. I also have a bunch of HOWTO documents I've written that may also help you get things working.

    Are you running 0.11.7 of pilot-link (which is required for USB to work with any of the other apps, KPilot, J-Pilot, gnome-pilot, etc.) I'll be releasing 0.11.8 shortly.

    Is your kernel recent enough to support it? Use 2.4.20 or later, but not 2.5, if you want the most stable. Previous kernels had issues with the visor driver crashing, which have been resolved in 2.4.20 and later kernel versions.

    Considered a donation to the project?

    Good luck.

  13. Commodore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I want to sync my iPaq w/my Commodore PET (8k) with an IEEE-488 interface.... any links?

    How about my Commodore 64?

    TRS-80 model III?

    Apple ]|[?

    The Apple LISA?

    Hmmm... maybe my Kim-1

    My Cromeco (S-100 bus)?

    Atari-400 or 800?

    Apple ][?

    Apple 1?

    TI-99/4a? (hell, it worked as a blue box...)

    Sinclair ZX-81?

    Osborne (CP/M based)...

    Obscure enough guys?

    Really though - if you want to make it easy to sync your stuff - have it communicate in XML, come up with some sort of a standard, and use that. Forget the proprietary crap...

    Make the whole spec Open Source - then if someone comes along with an obscure little system, THEY can make it work themselves...

  14. PocketPC + Unices / Linux / MacOS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The project SynCE , while not finished, provides an acces to PocketPC material (PDA, smartphone, etc...) from Unix.
    The library provides low-level access (files, registry,databases, etc...) and some utilities permit file and database import/export.

    It also has KDE integration, Evolution syncing, etc...
    Go there, have a look, contribute, and report success and errors !

  15. It's not the OS you need to sync to ... by Clansman · · Score: 1

    ... it's the apps like your mail/calendar that make it less than satisfactory unless you just mean 'backup to' when you say sync ...