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Linux Support on USB Palm Pilots?
seachnasaigh asks: "I love desktop Linux, but the one stumbling block I have with deploying it in some capacity for my userbase is USB Palm Pilots. Once upon a time I managed to get GPilot working with a serial PalmVx, but despite repeated attempts (SuSE 9.2 pro, Fedora Core 3 and several Palm devices) I can't get a synch to happen with the USB version, either through the native Gnome Pilot app or through Evolution (and yes, Kpilot too!). Our standard deployment is a Palm Tungsten T series; most of our desktops are recent Dells. It's embarrassing to have to boot into Windows to synch the Palms. Does anyone have some suggestions out there?"
It works for my boss (using a Tungsten W), using SuSE9.2 Pro, and Gentoo, under Evolution with the pilot system.
He noted that it was much easier to get working in Gentoo than SuSE.
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"I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality."
My Tunsten E works flawlessly using Jpilot and pilot-link on Debian and FreeBSD. It doesn't work with Gnome-Pilot for some reason, but I haven't really tried very hard to get it to. I normally use Jpilot, and since it works fine, I don't worry too much about it.
Maybe this is a thoroughly unhelpful suggestion, but I'd say try Jpilot if you don't require Evolution or some other specific app to be able to sync with.
I've been synching my Visor via USB for five years now and it wasn't difficult to set up, just required a fairly recent pilot-link tools and the usb-serial emulation module. I imagine on any modern distribution the hotplug support should do most of the work. Try using pilot-link first, see if it finds the device, and look at the logs to see what happens when you press the hotsync button (remember to press it before starting pilot-xfer).
Anyways... the only real trick is that you have to start the hotsync on the pilot before you start the hotsync on the desktop (the desktop won't see the USB device until the hotsync has started).
Devices:
/dev/pilot: symbolic link to ttyUSB1
/dev/ttyUSB1: character special (188/1)
Modules required:
visor (CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_VISOR=m)
usbserial (CONFIG_USB_SERIAL=m)
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Unfortunately, most laptop vendors don't even put serial ports on their laptops now (though strangely, they still include a parallel port?) so it's tough to even sync with an older serial based Palm.
I tried it several times, once with SuSe, and once with FC3, but there is always something wrong, and it never worked right.
/dev/pilot to /dev/USB0, because it will only work with /dev/pilot, etc. It didn't work.
Being a Windows user who wants to switch to Linux [I planned this for a long time], this problem is what keeps me on Win.
Could someone point me to a manual that has screenshots, or mode detailed explanations of things?
Because I've read several tutorials, and all of them stated different things. i.e. one said that USB is ttyUSB00, another one - ttyUSB0. Then I was told that I have to symlink
Currently, I have a system with Win2k and Fedora Core3+ Palm m505. I would love to be able to sync it with Evolution via gnome-pilot... But of course, anything will do.
[wow, it felt just as writing an email to a company's support dept]
The saddest poem
I haven't had problems. However, if USB doesn't work for you, you can always hotsync through Bluetooth or 802.11. For Bluetooth, you can either use the Bluez stack and have a choice between serial or network sync, or you can use a Bluetooth-to-Ethernet interface and use network sync.
I have a Tungsten T and use jpilot with a "serial port" setting of: /dev/usb/tts/0
/dev/usb/tts/0 -s ~/palm_sync
It just works.
This also works for me:
pilot-xfer -p
The Dell you are trying to sync with may be part of the problem. In the last few years I've lost respect for Dell due to their use of random hardware and chips. The are the new Gateway. I've never been able to mount my MP3 player on my work machine which is a Dell. I've had no problem with a cheap HP, an old Micron or a newer Shuttle. I think the USB ports are too flaky to be fully supported under linux on the Dells.
Just my $0.02, YMMV, etc.
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
The other bit about /dev/ttyUSB1 is also extremely helpful; I found that in the FAQs and through google.
I suppose the moral of this post is that yes, it can be done. You might have a few bumps along the way, but for me personally it has been worth it.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
How familiar. I had a lot of headache long ago with RedHat 9. It was kinda 3 yeras ago, so instructions are kinda fuzzy, sorry. Here are things to check (some of them were mentioned, but I do not have mod points, so I'll just repeat them to emphasize):
/etc/rc.local to get them loaded for sure. It was ugly, but worked. May be other slashdotters have better advice on how to force loading of particular modules.
/dev/ttyUSB*
/dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/visor /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/palm /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/pilot
/var/log/messages and see that Palm device is actually there, w/o any errors.
1. Check that kernel is compiled with modules 'serial' and 'visor', you can check if they are loaded by typing modprobe serial; modprobe visor.
If these modules are compiled but not loaded for some reason, modprobe will actually load them, so if modprobe's go w/o problems you may already be able to sync your Palm.
If modules are not compiled (which is usually NOT the case when you use popular modern distros - you have to compile them yourself).
I am not sure, but at some point I inserted modprobe seial; modeprobe visor; command into
2. Ok, so your modules are in place. Now you should have appropriate permissions to read/write serial USB connections.
chmod 666
under root should do the trick
3. Some programs expect Palm device under certain name, so it mightbe useful to that
ln -s
ln -s
ln -s
4. To check that Palm is seen by drivers, attach cradle to USB, place palm into the cradle and press sync button. Do not expect anything to appear, just press it. Now review
5. Now, the trick is that Linux does not actually see Palm device until sync button is pressed. So you have to press sync button on craddle (or in Palm sync app) first, and only then fire up your Linux plam software of choice. AFAIR, there is a cute thingy called hotplug, that let's you hook some actions on certain device events, so go RTFM.
I agree - this is frustrating. Actually I thought modern distros automate that whole stuff, but did not check it for a long time though. Good luck!
my sstream of consciousness
hey, dunno where you've been, but if you looked around, loaded the VISOR module in your kernel (2.6 series), had jpilot and all its deps installed, you wouldn't have trouble whatsoever! The visor module is a USB Serial Converter, and although it's hidden, it's there. I use it daily with my Palm m505 and it works wonder! This is a lack of research on your part, not a lack of support. Now the real trick is to get Psion's PDAs to work with linux from a gui. Not Palm's!
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
My USB Sony Clie SJ-20 works with the several versions of Mandrake [Mandriva, whatever] and SuSE that I've used it with, with both jpilot and kpilot.
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
As many have noted the key is the "visor" use-serial module. I'm getting tired of ask/. questions that one could solve with a google search :-/
This is terrible. How did this even make it past the /. editors/censors?
My friend, I have one word for you - "google".
Support for PalmOS based units is ROCK SOLID on Linux, especially the USB based units. And it has been for years. I am a PalmPilot user from the 1990s, and while I admit that there were issues in the first few years, today they simply dont exist, not with stuff like Jpilot around. The guys who run the Pilot Link project have been doing fantastic work over the years making sure that things work, and there must be a zillion Linux users out there who benefit daily from their work.
A totally elementary Google search would have brought up EVERYTHING you would need to get things going.
On a tangent - why was this post allowed through in first place? It now sits on the front page of Slashdot, and gives all those guys who never RTFA or read comments more misguidance, leaving them with the impression that what is written in that post is actually true.
And it will poison search engines for a long time, so that anyone who ACTUALLY does a google search before posting gets this post thrown up before any real information.
BAH!
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
The support of USB Palms through Gnome (Gpilot or Evolution) is pants. It never worked correctly.
Now, I have SuSE 9.2 and I can sync my NX70 with the Kpilot shipped with SuSE.
One of the issue you may encounter is that user interaction required to sync a Palm is kind of convoluted (plug Palm, open sync application, wait, start HotSync from the Palm, click on Sync in the app, you get the picture) so the first time is always difficult. Please note that this is really Palm fault for having a freaky handshake protocol, not Kpilot's or Jpilot's.
Nobox: Only simple products.
I can get my Palm Zire 31 to sync under Debian Sarge without issues, using evolution and gpilotd. I did, however, have to add a line to a configuration file somewhere, I found the answer on a ubuntu forum. Now I try to avoid sync'ing under Windows!
I always wondered where this setting was...
This does not work with the Tungsten T5 at all. Because of the flash memory and "Drive Mode" (makes it work like a jump drive) it connects to USB0 and USB1 as soon as you plug it in. Whatever you did to make a Visor or older Palm work is irrelevent. Some distributions apparently have hotplug set up differently, but Mandrake 10 and Slackware 10.1 will not sync with a Tungsten T5 at all.
Most of the USB Palms make use of an internal USB-Serial Adapter. Can you check for the adapter and then try again?
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I am starting to notice, as others have, that Ask Slashdot has become a generic "Tech Questions" forum. I always thought it was for when you had a thought-provoking or complicated questions that could benefit a large group of people, but lately it's just "I can't get foo to work, does Slashdot know how? I'm using it for psuedo-important-usage and my (boss|significant other|kids|imaginary friend) really wants it to work."
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I've found that different devices show up on different USB ports.
/dev/ttyUSB1 works for the Zire 72 and Tungsten E.
/dev/ttyUSB0 works for the Tungsten T.
This is all with J-Pilot, which has always worked perfectly for me.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
has any one out there have epocrates (a drug data base for health care providers) to update through debian? i ended up getting a mac mini because i couldn't get it to work
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Memories. /dev/dsp not writeable by the primary user on the system (and constantly being re-chowned to root).
CTRL H for backspace.
USB drives showing up automatically on the desktop.
There tends to be a gap between possible/working and working well. This is one of the things Linux has the hardest time with. I felt I should chime in because I myself abandoned palms/visors a few years back for many reasons, one being that getting them to work in Linux was a major PIB. It would work but never flawlessly. (Yes, if HW does not work in Linux I abandon it.)
But if you hunt around you will usually find a distro that has decided to shine in tackling this particular issue.
I've seen a few recommendations so far, but my thoughts would be to try either Gentoo or Mandrake(Mandriva?). They are usually pretty good in working on these fine points. I think if you try out several distro and find one that works with no tweaking you will have a distro you like, and you may also get a good idea how to handle it if you want another distro.
I'm seeing some sort of setuid scripting hooking into hotplug to open up your graphical sync program. But that is a bit of work, debugging and little scripts like that tend to fail. I applaud folks who work on distro's for making those little things work so well.
Hope you find what ya seek.
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
At first, I had a Palm IIIxe, which I sync'd serially with two serial cables on two machines. This worked flawlessly.
Then I upgraded to a Tungsten C. At first, this worked great with two Fedora Core 2 machines.
Then I upgraded both machines to Fedora Core 3, and one of the systems continued to work great, while the other would frequently crash during sync'ing.
Then I reinstalled the crashy system with Ubuntu, and things were good again.
As far as PIM software, I've used almost exclusively jpilot, though I did try out evolution's palm pilot support for a while.
I can finally synch my Palm Zire 71 via the KPilot feature under Kunbuntu Linux -- surprised the crap out of me, as I had tried to synch this PDA with a dozen Linux distros before, with zero success.
User MUST show picture ID
It works perfectly with my T5 and KPilot, as long as I wave a dead chicken over the kernel at the same moment I press the hotsync button.
I'm a very happy bunny, syncing my Tungsten E to both JPilot and gnome-pilot, as the mood takes me. This is on Debian unstable running Linux 2.6.
/dev/ttyUSB devices. You want to put the second one into your apps (so it creates /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1; you use ttyUSB1).
. html , which is rather good.
Things to beware: when you plug in your palmtop, it'll create two
Secondly, if you sync to multiple apps, don't try to run more than one at once, as it will make the dye run. Don't do this.
If it stops working for no reason, check that it hasn't got itself tied up and created two sets of devices (so you think it's ttyUSB1, but it thinks it's ttyUSB3, for instance).
I believe I pulled most of this information out of http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/PalmOS-HOWTO
-- Rachael
I've just tried to get my handspring visor to sync with gnome-pilot under CentOS 4 (i.e. RedHat EL4) and it wasn't straight forward, or solvable in a simple google search (mostly because udev is new I guess). Here are the links that helped me out:
g eneral/2004-November/002084.html
http://lists.pilot-link.org/pipermail/pilot-link-
http://pilot-link.org/README.usb