Palm Pilot / sync / Powerbook G4 - pulling my hair out

[nextstep]

I've followed lots of other threads on the forums but I still cannot get my Powerbook and Palm Pilot (m105) to sync.

I've enabled the Visor module in my kernel build and when the machine boots I get the following modules loaded:

Module Size Used by Not tainted
yenta_socket 11616 0
pcmcia_core 44480 0 [yenta_socket]
visor 11020 0 (unused)
usbserial 19584 0 [visor]
vfat 11296 0 (unused)
fat 33452 0 [vfat]
usb-ohci 22944 0 (unused)
usb-storage 42868 0 (unused)
usbcore 72376 1 [visor usbserial usb-ohci usb-storage]

When I connect my cradle to the Powerbooks USB port I get the two files:
/dev/usb/tts/0 and /dev/usb/tts/1.

I have created a 'pda' group and added my user account to it.
I have chowned the /tts/* files to be owned by the 'pda' group.
I have chmoded both files to 777.

I have added a symlink in /dev for pilot and palm e.g.
root@local andrew # ls -l /dev/pilot
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 14 Oct 14 11:29 /dev/pilot -> /dev/usb/tts/0

I had previously tried to link to tts/1 but that proved useless.

When I boot I get this in my syslog:
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xe121d000, IRQ 28
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usb-ohci.c: usb-10:19.0, Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo USB (#2)
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: hub.c: USB hub found
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: hub.c: 2 ports detected
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usb.c: registered new driver serial
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Generic
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usbserial.c: USB Serial Driver core v1.4
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Handspring Visor / Treo / Palm 4.0 / Clié 4.x
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Sony Clié 3.5
Oct 12 11:51:30 local kernel: visor.c: USB HandSpring Visor, Palm m50x, Treo, Sony Clié driver v1.7

When I try to sync I get something like the following in my kern.log
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: usb.c: USB device number 2 default language ID 0x409
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: Manufacturer: Palm Computing, Inc.
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: Product: USB Serial Adaptor
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: SerialNumber: 00403492
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: usbserial.c: Handspring Visor / Treo / Palm 4.0 / Clié 4.x converter detected
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: visor.c: visor_startup - error getting bytes available request
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: usbserial.c: Handspring Visor / Treo / Palm 4.0 / Clié 4.x converter now attached to ttyUSB0 (or usb/tts/0 for devfs)
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: usbserial.c: Handspring Visor / Treo / Palm 4.0 / Clié 4.x converter now attached to ttyUSB1 (or usb/tts/1 for devfs)
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: usb.c: serial driver claimed interface df8f7220
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: usb.c: kusbd: /sbin/hotplug add 2
Oct 14 00:28:48 local kernel: hub.c: port 2, portstatus 100, change 0, 12 Mb/s


As my user account I've tried to test the connection with:
pilot-xfer -p /dev/pilot -L

for both tts/0 and tts/1 with the relevant symlinks created in /dev.

Setting the symlink in /dev/pilot to tts/0 has been the most successful as on one occasion it noted 'Error getting data from /dev/pilot' when the hotsync on the Palmk timed out.

Most of the time it appears unable to bind to port.

This is really causing me a headache as its the last thing I need to sort since swapping from OS X to Gentoo PPC.

I have a Titanium G4 867Mhz Powerbook, running Gentoo PPC 1.4.
I've compiled the gentoo kernel sources.
Although I prefer to work in Xfce4, I have also tried to setup syncing in Gnome with Evolution.

Nothing works.


Any ideas?

[fafhrd]

i'm working on getting my palm sync working optimally as well at the moment ... i have the TiBook 800Mhz revIII ..

one idea i had for you is that in my setup i have a sony clie, which has one of those memory stick dealies, and /dev/usb/tts/0 is for when you "connect media to desktop" or whatever, whereas /dev/usb/tts/1 is the actually "palm syncing" device ...

well, that's how it is for me; i'm not sure if a pda doesn't have a storage device on it if the "0" is still created for such purpose ... so update your /dev/pilot link and give it a try ...
_________________
jñanam bandha

[nextstep]

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, I have tried symlinking to /dev/usb/tts/1 as /dev/pilot and /dev/palm to no effect

I tried again though, just to make sure, and the output I get from pilot-xfer is:

Defaulting to /dev/pilot
ERROR : No such device (19)
.....
Unable to bind to port : /dev/pilot
......


I'm sure this works for other people, maybe my PDA (Palm M105) is too old? This is the kind of thing that made me use OSX in the first place, but I've longed to return to Linux for ages and Gentoos portage is really something special

[nextstep]

Also, when using /dev/usb/tts/1 as my /dev/pilot symlink target the kern.log in /var/log shows:

visor.c : Device lied about number of ports, please use a lower one.

Thats why I was trying on /dev/usb/tts/0.


Sometimes trying to sync on /tts/0 seems to freeze the entire machine though - some sort of kernel panic

[nextstep]

New update:

I tried to sync my palm on /dev/usb/tts/0 and got the following error:

pilot-xfer -p /dev/usb/tts/0 -l
Listening to port: /dev/usb/tts/0
Press the Hotsync button now... Segmentation fault


At least something is happening

[ozonator]

I don't have a USB-based Palm myself (trusty IIIxe still doin' fine, though with a USB-serial converter now), but I've seen it often said on the j-pilot mailing list that to get sync'ing to work with the USB models, you need to press the HotSync button on the Palm device/cradle first, before telling your Linux software to sync (e.g., before running pilot-xfer or pressing the 'sync' button in j-pilot). That might be the problem.

Not sure why you get that segfault, or whether it's ttys/0 or ttys/1 you should use (if I remember stories from the j-pilot list, people try one, and if it doesn't work, they use the other ).

The m105 is definitely not too old (as my IIIxe proves!); I'm sure I've seen plenty of mention on the j-pilot list by people who use that model. It should work well with pilot-link and j-pilot (which is a very nice piece of software, BTW; there's an ebuild for the newest version, 0.99.6, in Gentoo's bugzilla, which has worked well for me).

One other thing -- if you're using Gnome or KDE, make sure that, e.g., the gnome-pilot daemon (gpilotd) isn't running; in general, having two programs trying to get at the Palm at the same time causes problems.

Hope this helps!

[nextstep]

Finally got it fixed

I found a note on the debian mailing list that mentioned using the kl5kusb105 module.

I'd never even heard of this one - sure enough it did the trick