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Handhelds Software Linux

Linux Support on USB Palm Pilots? 54

Posted by Cliff from the to-sync-or-not-to-sync dept.
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?"
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Linux Support on USB Palm Pilots? More

Linux Support on USB Palm Pilots?

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  • 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.
  • 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.

    • Mine used to work fine with Evolution (I'm sure it still does; but I don't use a palm or evolution now that I have a mac :). I remember having to fight with the USB library, recompile, and use hotplug. I eventually figured it out, but the gnome-pilot documentation sucked. I would search the lists or ask them, they probably know better than slashdot :)
    • Interesting... I never was able to get mine to sync. Tungsten E, Debian. 2.4 kernel of some sort, IIRC. (I'm not at work, or I'd check.) The ttyUSB shows up, but I have never managed to get it to do anything but sit telling me that I should hit the hot sync button (Though that message would only appear after I hit it!)

      Also, for double bonus points, does anybody know how to sync Groupwise with a Tungsten E under Linux?

      • Interesting... I never was able to get mine to sync. Tungsten E, Debian. 2.4 kernel of some sort, IIRC. (I'm not at work, or I'd check.) The ttyUSB shows up, but I have never managed to get it to do anything but sit telling me that I should hit the hot sync button (Though that message would only appear after I hit it!)

        If you aren't already, you may want to try ttyUSB1 instead of ttyUSB0. Two different devices get set up for Palms & related devices (Visor, etc), and AFAIK, ttyUSB1 is the one you wan

  • 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).

  • Hit sync first (Score:5, Informative)

    by Col. Klink (retired) ( 11632 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:49PM (#12516275)
    First of all, why aren't you posting this to the pilot-unix mailing list?

    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)

    • I use J-Pilot on SuSE 9.2 with my Handspring. The program has me press its sync button, then it says to press sync on my handheld. I've found that it very consistently times out on the first try, I hit "ok" on the Handspring, then tell J-Pilot to sync again, press the Handspring sync button, and everything works. I tried your suggestion (Handspring sync button first) but same results. It's a quirk that I tolerate to avoid dual-booting back to windows.

      The other bit about /dev/ttyUSB1 is also extremely

    • As an exception, the kpilotDaemon does polling. it listens regularly until the device initiates hotsync, then procedes to sync when it gets something.
    • 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.

  • I tried it several times, once with SuSe, and once with FC3, but there is always something wrong, and it never worked right.

    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
    • Well, it's going to be /dev/ttyUSBsomething, and that depends entirely on your setup (eg other usb devices, and the whims of your hotplug system). Whatever it is, though, it will most likely at least be consistent.

      Mine is /dev/ttyUSB1.

      Now, I use kpilot on SuSE 9.1, and now 9.3, with an m505. IIRC, what I did when I got it was start at ttyUSB0 and work my way up until it worked (note that it won't actually see the device until you hit its hotsynch button). You may have to play with the speed settings too,
  • 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

    It just works.

    This also works for me:

    pilot-xfer -p /dev/usb/tts/0 -s ~/palm_sync
  • 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.
    • Ive had the same problem. For some reason my iRiver will not mount using the front USB ports on the 8xxx series using the front USB ports. It works fine on the back. This happens to me on Linux and Windows.

  • Oooooh (Score:2, Informative)

    by Tamerlan ( 817217 )
    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):

    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
  • 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!
  • 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.

  • Research people! (Score:2, Informative)

    by aldragon ( 782143 )
    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 :-/

  • Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toolz ( 2119 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @03:03AM (#12517152) Homepage Journal
    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 [jpilot.org] around. The guys who run the Pilot Link [pilot-link.org] 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 [google.com] 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!
    • Agreed. I had used Jpilot for the brief period that I had a Sony Clie, and was quite happy to find that I was able to restore to my Tungsten-E with no change in setup. If anything, USB sync is EASIER than old serial link.

      Not sure how this is even an ask slashdot. Took me maybe 5 minutes with Google the first time I set up Jpilot, and I'm using Gentoo.

      I'm pretty sure that if I was using one of the commercial distros I wouldn't even have had to search.

    • A totally elementary Google search would have brought up EVERYTHING you would need to get things going.

      ... including my page [freedos.org] about 'Using Palm Zire with Linux'. The only stumbling block I had was that the USB device it was sitting on wasn't being chown'd to me, so I had to manually extend the permissions so I could read/write to the device.

      Aside from that, it's easy. My only other problem has been that I can't sync my work calendar (we use Oracle Collaboration Suite, and there's no connector for tha

    • Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wskellenger ( 675359 )
      Support for PalmOS based units is ROCK SOLID on Linux, especially the USB based units. And it has been for years.

      This is a typical response from this userbase, and it is a stretch, at best. (ESPECIALLY USB UNITS, FOR YEARS?)

      The original poster is having difficulty getting it to work, as do HUNDREDS of other people. It's amazing how you point out that it's rock solid, but then recommend a Google search to find "everything you need to get it going." Look at the number of responses to this article!

      U

    • Thank you, but I'm perfectly cognizant of that. Had this been as simple as following directions in a manual found through a Google search, I never would have bothered with /. The reality is that despite following numerous such sets of directions, I still couldn't get it to work with the hardware I have on hand. That level of frustration is what set me to asking the /. community for some experiences along the same lines. Thanks to posting this question to the /. userbase, I have several new avenues to explor

  • JPilot or Kpilot (Score:3, Informative)

    by AdamInParadise ( 257888 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @03:20AM (#12517219) Homepage
    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.
  • 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!
  • 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.
    • Excellent; thank you. That may have been the key I was looking for; it's always confused me when working on this that doing a tail -20 on /var/log/messages produced an almost immediate connexion to not /dev/ttyUSB0 but both that AND /dev/ttyUSB1, simultaneously. No matter how many times I tried a ln -s for /dev/pilot, I wound up with no connexion because I can't simlink it to both ports at once. Neither FC3 nor SuSE 9.2 seem to understand which of the ttyUSB's to use for the Palm T's major PIM functions. Wo
  • Most of the USB Palms make use of an internal USB-Serial Adapter. Can you check for the adapter and then try again?
    • Actually, yes. I'd checked for the USB/Serial adapter and for the presence in the logfiles of the distro recognising the device as connected. Sadly, this doesn't seem to be the problem, but thank you!

  • 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."

  • 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

  • Memories.
    CTRL H for backspace. /dev/dsp not writeable by the primary user on the system (and constantly being re-chowned to root).

    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,
  • 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 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.
  • 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.

    Things to beware: when you plug in your palmtop, it'll create two /dev/ttyUSB devices. You want to put the second one into your apps (so it creates /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1; you use ttyUSB1).

    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 t

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