Syncing Palm Pilot with JPilot and visor on 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
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