I have a somewhat antique Palm Zire 71 that has, periodically, synced perfectly with various flavors of GNU/Linux. On the other hand, sometimes a new release / kernel / version prevents it from syncing at all.
My life is simple enough that I really don’t need to actively sync it with an online calendar, which is a damn good thing. Back when I needed to do hotsyncing, it always came heartbreakingly close to working; apparently that’s still the case. Having to comb out a complete set of duplicate addressbook entries pretty much soured me on futher experimentation.
Currently, the Zire on the outs with Ubuntu / Kubuntu Hardy. The hack that makes it work goes a little something like this:
The file /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9 blacklists the visor module, which allegedly lets all the pilot-* programs connect using libusb, but that flat-out doesn’t work for me.
Replace this stanza inside /etc/udev/rules.d/60-symlinks.rules:
#KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", ATTRS{product}=="Palm Handheld*|Handspring *|palmOne Handheld", \
# SYMLINK+="pilot"
With this one:
BUS=="usb", SYSFS{product}=="Palm Handheld*|Handspring *|palmOne Handheld", \
KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", NAME="ttyUSB%n", SYMLINK+="pilot", GROUP="dialout", MODE="0666"
Make sure you’re in the dialout group. If you’re not, add yourself, log out, then log back in again.
I back the Zire up once a month, which is rarely enough that I just load the visor module by hand:
sudo modprobe visor
Create a directory for backing up into:
cd ~/Zire71 mkdir 2009-01-03
And then backing up the Zire is easy enough. Pop the thing in the cradle, poke the hotsync button, and quick like a bunny whack Enter on this:
pilot-xfer -p /dev/ttyUSB1 -b 2009-21-03/
The ttyUSB1 device will, of course, vary depending on whether you have any other USB-serial gizmos plugged in at the time.
Frankly, the utter unreliability and instability of this whole USB PDA mess is one of the reasons why, IMHO, GNU/Linux really isn’t “ready for the desktop” despite the fact that all our boxen here run it. I don’t particularly want a phone / camera / PDA / ebook reader / pocketwarmer, but I can see I’ll wind up with one some day just to get a USB interface that actually works.
Memo to self: remember to modprobe visor
Update: Xubuntu 8.10 fixed all that, so USB hotplugging seems to work right out of the box. Install pilot-link, then just:
pilot-xfer -p usb: -b /path/to/backups
Now, whether syncing to contacts & calendars works correctly, I cannot say.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 