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How can I hotsync a Palm Tx via WiFi?


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I have a new Palm Tx. I have in the past owned a Palm M515 which I hotsynced via USB to kpilot under Mandriva.

 

To avoid having to use the cable, and for speed, I would like to be able to hotsync via the WiFi that the palm has built in. I already have the WiFi link working. I have an access point plugged into my local LAN, and have connected to a SAMBA share on the Mandriva machine, and successfully downloaded files to the palm, so it's all up and running.

 

Now for the hotsync... Under kpilot's config, there a place to set the device to use, currently set to /dev/ttyUSB1 (which worked for the M515 usb interface). Can I enter something there that tells it to look for a connection via the network?

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

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I understand. I will try it, but the cable is at work (where my primary hotsync is to a Windows machine). I was hoping to use WiFi at home and so leave the cable at work.

 

As soon as I remember to bring the cable home, I will try it. I am not expecting problems though as my M515 worked well.

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Yes. Sorry it took so long.

 

OK, it works, but this is one of the cruddiest, bug ridden areas of linux I have experienced so far, and it's not the Tx's fault. I had the same problems last time, except I think Mandriva 2006 has made it worse.

 

The tttUSB port that it uses keeps changing and you end up chasing it. Every time I point kpilot at the one it connected as last time, it shifts to the next one up. I think it has something to do with some Handspring Visor / Palm OS converter thingy that keeps mucking with it. Watch the messages log as you plug it in, or press hotsync to see what I mean

 

tail -f /var/log/messages  (as root)
or run the dmesg command

 

What I had to do was to set it to /dev/ttyUSB1, then press the reset device connection button in kpilot until the hotsync log said

 

Pilot device /dev/ttyUSB1 does not exist. Probably it is a USB device and will appear during a HotSync.

 

at that point, if I press hotsync, it all worked.

 

Now I just did a backup hotsync. I haven't played with hotsyncing to any of the PIMS like Kontact or anything.

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For the benefit of those who consider getting TX.

 

Palm TX perfectly synchronizes (over USB) with evolution 2 under Mandriva 2005LE and Mandrake 10.1. First load modules visor and usbserial: add them to /etc/modprobe.preload, then reboot.

On 10.1, you may also need to install an updated version of evo, and add TX vendor/product info to gnome-pilot's devices database /usr/share/gnome-pilot/devices.xml:

 <!-- Palm Handheld -->
<device vendor_id="0830" product_id="0061" />

Also, you may need to configure module visor. Start MCC, go to hardware, locate Palm and click configure module. Add vendor Id 0830, and product_id=0061. This may be necessary if you want to use jpilot or kpilot instead of evo.

 

TX syncs with evolution 1.4 shipped with older versions of Mandrake just as well. To make this work, install gnome-pilot package from MDK 10.1 distro. You will need two more packages to resolve dependencies, gnome-keyring and libgnome-keyring0. Download the packages and install them using rpm or kpackage, in this order - libgnome-keyring0, gnome-keyring, gnome-pilot. Urpmi most likely will abort installation due to version mismatch, so use rpm. After the packages are installed, modify devices.xml as above. Of course, modules usbserial and visor must be added to /etc/modules (if you use 2.4 kernel) or /etc/modprobe.preload (for 2.6 kernel). You may also need to set vendor/product info option for visor. Just add this line to /etc/modules.conf.

options visor vendor=0x830 product=0x61

 

The problem with chasing /dev/ttyUSB* is apparently specific to kpilot. I did have this problem on my 10.1 box until I did all the modfications and restarted the box. After reboot with pilot connected (I could have forgotten to close evo before rebooting), gpilotd daemon started and asked standard configuration questions. After that I did not have to do anything - /dev/pilot link always points to the right ttyUSB.

Edited by coverup
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The problem with chasing /dev/ttyUSB* is apparently specific to kpilot. I did have this problem on my 10.1 box until I did all the modfications and restarted the box. After reboot with pilot connected (I could have forgotten to close evo before rebooting), gpilotd daemon started and asked standard configuration questions. After that I did not have to do anything - /dev/pilot link always points to the right ttyUSB.

Probably not, mine does the same on USB synch...

 

if you use

 

tail -f /var/log/messages (as root) you will see this escaliting count ... aggh .. its only unloading the visor module which will reset it..

 

rmmod visor

(you may need to rmmod dep modules too)

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For the benefit of those who consider getting TX.

 

Palm TX works perfectly synchronizes with evolution 2 under Mandriva 2005LE and Mandrake 10.1. First load modules visor and usbserial: add them to /etc/modprobe.preload, then reboot.

 

OK, so how did you get it working with WiFi? What device do you set instead of /dev/ttyusbx ?

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OK, so how did you get it working with WiFi?  What device do you set instead of /dev/ttyusbx ?

I didn't try WiFi its a palm zire 72 so Wifi is extra ... and it takes a standard mini-usb so I just synch that way but the USB serials increase by one each time it (it shows 2 one for the memory card)

shows 0 and 1 the first time then 2 and 3 etc. etc. so I remove the module to reset it .. otherwise you end up chasing ghosts.

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I never intended synching over WiFi. I sync over USB. The gnome pilot daemon has an option "Network", that could be what you want... On the other hand, I don't allow file sharing on my boxes, so WiFiles (or a similar app) won't be of much use...

 

I ended up using /dev/pilot. This way I don't need to worry about ttyUSB*

 

In regard to having incremented ttyUSB*, check this post

http://www.mail-archive.com/gnome-pilot-li...g/msg00263.html Ultimately, the problem is caused by udev. However, since I sync with /dev/pilot I was able to avoid the problem. Maybe this has something to do with setting device info in the first place, don't know...

Edited by coverup
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just bought this model this weekend(T|X). I have only gotten usb syncing to work once. I was looking all over, and finally looked in the included help files. (In konqueror -help:kpilot) Instead of /dev/pilot or /dev/ttyUSB1 just type net:any. This works great for me.

 

I hope that you check back here or got it working on your own.

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I have uninstalled kpilot :cry: does net:any allow to sync over WiFi - that was the original question. By the way, TX syncs with Windows over WiFi just fine. I doubt this can work under Linux - since there is no /dev device associated with eth0 or wlan0, gpilot for sure won't work. But it should work over bluetooth connection.

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Thanks for the tip, fassan.

 

net:any does the trick. First off, I had to modify firewall rules on my Linux box in order for TX to be able to communicate with my box via network. After that, I setup the network hotsynching on TX. Nothing special - choose Network instead of Local and follow prompts on the screen. Of course, you must have WiFi configured. TX attempts to discover the network - this never worked for me, I had to manually specify the LAN IP address of my host. Apparently, TX is trying to read host's name - it takes a long time to establish connection for the first time. Actually, the first time I connected using Windows (my laptop is dualboot and uses the same IP address in Windows and Linux). After that, I could test the WiFi connection from Linux by typing

$ pilot-xfer -p net:any -l

When propmted, hit the hotsync button on the palm, and the list of files from TX should appear on the screen.

 

The next step was to establish synching with evolution. For some reason beyond my understanding, I could not replace /dev/pilot in the gnome-pilot-applet settings - it just wouldn't accept anything which wasn't beginning with / , so I tried multisync. You need the main package (multisync) and two plugins, multisync-palm and multisync-evolution. The RPMs are available from sourceforge, just follow the download link on www.multisync.org. Once installed, multisync worked out of the box, I just had to replace the default port /dev/pilot to net:any, and get the user identity from the TX.

 

The only hickup I have is that after synching duplicate entries appear in the Contacts, Tasks and Calender. I tried pilot-dedupe, but this command did not have any effect.

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  • 5 weeks later...
Guest joetheman74
just bought this model this weekend(T|X).  I have only gotten usb syncing to work once.  I was looking all over, and finally looked in the included help files.  (In konqueror -help:kpilot)  Instead of /dev/pilot or /dev/ttyUSB1 just type net:any.  This works great for me.

 

I hope that you check back here or got it working on your own.

 

I LOVE YOU!!!

 

You have saved me! WIFI hotsync working with kpilot 100% No more windows thank god! BTW I am a fedora user but the t|x works just the same anyway.

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