pda's and werewolves

needlern1 · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 3:15 am Post subject: pda's and werewolves

Thought I'd try something to get some attention. In my ongoing effort to get my palm tungsten c to synch with my gentoo 2.4.19-r10 system, the following seems to represent the lion's share of my problems:

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

Well, assuming you've got the permissions of /dev/pilot right and you've done everything else exactly right, it's still an issue of timing. Even after syncing with Linux for a year and a half, it takes me at least 2-3 tries to get the hotsync daemon (whatever your sync software) to hook into the PDA device at the right time.

needlern1 · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 1:59 pm Post subject:

Thank you guero61. I'm going to try another tact, as I have not successfully identified where/what devices are being used.

Using hotplug, what should be in the executable script called 'visor'?

This is what came from the linuxpda.com/visor/howto/v0.6/hotplug.html:
"When all is said and done, an (executable) script named /etc/hotplug/usb/visor should get run when you press the hotsync button.

#!/bin/sh
/bin/su rvbijl -c /usr/local/bin/coldsync

Obviously, you would want to replace the rvbijl39 with your normal user account. And make that script executable."

So I change rvbijl39 to my user 'bill', but then what? /usr/local/bin/coldsync doesn't make sense to me. What should I be pointing to? What should happen? TIA, Bill

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

Can't help you there... I've never used hotplug before. Anyone else???

I'm not sure about "coldsync" -- pilot-link doesn't provide that, just binaries to do each individual sync operation. You may write a "coldsync" script that executes each of those... I don't know, really!

needlern1 · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 4:23 pm Post subject:

Thanks again guero61. I did find a script that points to 'jpilot-sync', but I'm still being hamstrung by not knowing which dev to link pilot to. It seems that I've tried linking all of the ones listed in posts, like /dev/tts/0 and 1, /dev/ttyUSB0 and 1, /dev/ttS00, and 01, and the like.

A week of time is enough to invest at this point. 'Gonna plug it into my w2k box and move on. Will come back to this some time in the future. Bill

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

Before ya go, I can help you with the /dev part.

To link to anything, it must first exist. Using devfs, the device (/dev/usb/0, I think) will not exist until the PDA is actually trying to hotsync. So, put your PDA on the cradle, press the button, and go look in /dev/usb and /dev/tts and find out which device all of a sudden shows up. There ya go! Do a quick ln -s <path_to_dev> /dev/pilot, and you're ready to roll next time you push the sync button!

needlern1 · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 6:14 pm Post subject:

That's some of the frustration I've been going through. Nothing has ever shown up on those nodes or the others I've tried. I went so far as to do a mknod ...and they didn't show up there either.

If I could figure out what device the palm was coming in on I'd have it made. Thanks though, Bill

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

Can you hang on until this evening when I can get to my own machine and let you know where to look?

needlern1 · Posted: Wed May 14, 2003 4:13 pm Post subject:

Sure. I'd much rather use my linux box any day. All of this also presumes that the Palm os 5.1 works with the visor module. It may not. :mrgreen:

Bill

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

Sorry, had a long night (4 a.m.) coding a networks project.

My /dev/pilot points to /dev/usb/tts/1

So, if you cradle it, hit the hotsync button, and type

needlern1 · Posted: Wed May 14, 2003 6:28 pm Post subject:

Thanks for you patience here guero61. I appreciate your help.
The output of the two commands:

needlern1 · Posted: Wed May 14, 2003 9:18 pm Post subject:

Quick update(I need to go to work tonight). I tried the folowing and as you can see some progress.

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

Now you've hit the timing issue... something I've never gotten a handle on.

Whatever the case, you've got to wait a moment (sleep if you're scripting) so your kernel can recognize what's hooked, up, parse through all it's initialization crap... On a RedHat machine, I've seen it take up to 3 seconds for all the driver info to get set up.

needlern1 · Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 9:40 pm Post subject:

Thanks guero61. It seems to me that when usbview 'sees' the palm handheld it has already been processed by the kernel.

Anyway, I'm going to end this thread and start a new one persuing the hotplug aspect. Thanks again, Bill