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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?"

7 of 25 comments (clear)

  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

  2. 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."
  3. 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.

  4. 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?
  5. 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/

  6. 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.
  7. 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.