Syncing Palm Pilot with JPilot and visor on Ubuntu
| 04-May-2009 | Posted by Sonia Hamilton under PalmPilot, Ubuntu |
(Updated May/09 for Ubuntu 8.10/Ibex): for a long time I couldn’t get JPilot syncing with my Palm Pilot on Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10. Turns out I wasn’t reading my own instructions… here’s the cleaned up version:
- load visor module sudo modprobe visor and check loaded lsmod | grep visor
- add visor module to /etc/modules
- click sync button on Palm Pilot and check USB devices are being created:
- in one terminal, tail -f /var/log/syslog
/var/log/messages - in a second terminal, check the ownership of links ls -al /dev/ttyUSB* and check you are a member of the appropriate group (usually dialout) grep dialout /etc/group
- in one terminal, tail -f /var/log/syslog
- sudo aptitude install jpilot and start JPilot
- read this step carefully: no need to change the Serial Port setting in Preferences – JPilot will pick up the correct one on the first sync (which is now unexpectedly Other rather than /dev/ttyUSBO or usb:)
- read this step carefully: from jpilot File > Install User, click sync button on Palm Pilot, count to 5, then click Install User button in JPilot dialog box
- click sync button on Palm Pilot, count to 5, then click Sync in JPilot
- if syncing isn’t working (especially on a machine that’s been upgraded from an older version of Ubuntu), try closing JPilot, mv .jpilot .jpilot.bak, restarting JPilot, then doing the Install User steps again
See also:
- (totally off-topic): HOWTO: Import iCalendar (ics) Appointments Into JPilot
- some pages mention installing pilot-link – this isn’t required
- some pages mention modifying files in/etc/udev/rules.d – this no longer seems required
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=79965
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/13/0234225
http://www.linuxmuse.com/articles.php?action=printerf&article=29
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=177780
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=221854
http://www.rockhopper.dk/linux/hardware/pda.html#chap5_sect1
http://archives.mandrivalinux.com/expert/2003-02/msg02508.php
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/PalmOS-HOWTO.html#PC-CONNECT-USB
http://pilot-link.org/README.usb
Carsten Clasohm’s Blog : USB Palm and Fedora Core 3
Writing udev rules by Daniel Drake
Linux Magazine – The Linux Device Model
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Thank you for this information. I was able to use it and the links included to get my palm pilot talking with J-pilot. There are two comments I would like to leave that might be helpful to others in the future. The reason my pilot was not syncing was because the version of Ubuntu that I am running was not loading the visor module. To fix this I have to run sudo modprobe visor to start it before trying to sync.
I also installed the 10-custom.rule component that you indicated was not needed as part of my testing and on Ubuntu Feisty release 7.04 it stopped my system from rebooting while trying to configure the network. It hung with no error message and I had to remove the file by accessing it from a cd-rom boot.
Thanks Tony! Sonia.
Thanks very much for getting my trusty Palm synced.
No worries, Mike! Sonia.