Groupware that syncs smoothly with smartphone?

[Havin_it]

Hi,

I'm a couple of months away from replacing my trusty old Nokia N95 8GB phone, and already the "convergence anxiety" is on. That is to say, Dare I dream that I'll be able to find a phone and groupware-suite combo that'll seamlessly sync the PIM data I need?

On my current setup, that dream is only partially realised. I use the native sync app on the N95 (not that there's ever been an alternative on offer that I've seen), syncing with my Gentoo server running horde-3.3.11 and friends. There's no sync of email: a dovecot IMAP/postfix SMTP setup on the server is used by both horde and the phone. Calendar is the only sync component that really works, and that only in server->phone direction reliably. Contacts sync has never played nice: the contacts DB is in openldap, which was originally so Thunderbird could access it, and I wrote my own mapping so horde could also use it but I didn't do a great job there as it usually breaks when trying to save a contact in any of the indirect ways in horde (e.g. saving the From: address to a contact when reading an email in (d)imp) and sync has been a non-starter despite much tinkering.

So, can I hope for better? I'm not married to Horde, although there's plenty I like about it, and I'd happily enough abandon openldap too. I think a good reliable sync of contacts and calendar would be my main criterion in choosing a phone. Nice extras would be files and bookmarks, but these I can probably sort out separately if at all. I'd prefer not to use any non-self-hosted solutions (cloud-based things) but I'm open to it if it guarantees security, costs little/nothing and is reliable.

So, does anyone have any working Gentoo+phone setups that actually work for this? I'd love to hear about it, or anything that might be an improvement.

[ToeiRei]

I did a debian chroot and installed kerio connect for having a fine solution. Honestly, syncing with smartphones doesn't look smart to me at all on linux with free and open products
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[cach0rr0]

bout as close as you get is something like e.g. kolab

may be others out there, but that's the closest *I* have seen to a more or less integrated turnkey setup
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[py-ro]

I'am using syncml to sync my phone (Galaxy S2) with my eGroupware and groupdav/carddav to sync with Kontact/Thunderbird. As far as i know, you can directly use syncml to sync with your workstation, too.

Py

[Havin_it]

Thanks all for the responses.

@ToeiRei: I'm afraid that's probably true, certainly follows my experience. First time I tried 2-way calendar sync between Horde and my N95, I ended up with every entry duplicated because the phone changed all my event categories from <Category> to "X-<Category>". It's the little things

@cach0rr0: as a Horde user I've heard of Kolab, but was never moved to explore further. The range of client support (Thunderbird and Android mentioned, which are my main likely ones) sound good, though "pervasive use of LDAP" gives me a special shiver of dread...

@py-ro: eGroupware sounds pretty promising too. More features than needed, but if the ones I do need actually work (as you indicate) then it's worth a tryout. Also more akin to my current setup by the sound of it.

[cach0rr0]

[Havin_it]

Looks like I have a reason and opportunity to move up my plans a bit: my gf's trusty old mobile finally died and her 5 years' upgrade credits landed her a gratis Galaxy S2, so now I have an Android device to try out. Great! Or not

I dunno about the other platforms above, but with Horde3's SymcML implementation and my N95, it's vital to be able to use the same URI for all successive syncs. To be able to do this whether inside or outside my home WLAN, I had to run my own local DNS server to supply resolution by FQDN for the Horde server. Setting the DNS server and search domain for the N95 was a snap, but I now learn that Android phones can't do this at all.

That could be a real deal-breaker for Android. The only way I can see that it might work is if I let the dnsmasq server take over DHCP duties from the router, but I'm not even sure if the rest of the network'll tolerate this. It's a real blocker as I see it.

UPDATE: Okay, bit less panicked now. My initial exploration of the phone seemed to give only global IP config options, but I eventually found the per-network settings (earlier Android versions lacked these, it seems). That means I can make the phone use the local DNS server, whether on DHCP or not. That's a relief.

I think the first thing I'll try is a more recent version of Horde (was planning to bring in a non-portage install of this anyway, since the horde-webmail package is going away). The newer versions hopefully will have better sync abilities.