I'm just trying to get all my crap together for linux palm development. I'm working on USB hotsyncing. The support is there but with some idiosyncracies. I was haxxor and successfull. My kind of night. Details...
First you have to get USB stuff into the kernel. From 'make menuconfig'
I'm using version 2.4.2 right now.
<*> Support for USB
[ ] USB verbose debug messages
--- Miscellaneous USB options
[*] Preliminary USB device filesystem
--- USB Controllers
<*> UHCI Alternate Driver (JE) support
< > OHCI (Compaq, iMacs, OPTi, SiS, ALi, ...) support
--- USB Device Class drivers
< > USB Audio support
< > USB Mass Storage support
< > USB Modem (CDC ACM) support
< > USB Printer support
--- USB Human Interface Devices (HID)
--- Input core support is needed for USB HID
--- USB Imaging devices
< > USB Kodak DC-2xx Camera support
< > USB Scanner support
--- USB Multimedia devices
< > DABUSB driver
--- USB Network adaptors
--- USB port drivers
USB Serial Converter support --->
--- USB misc drivers
Also go into USB serial converter support and do the following
<*> USB Serial Converter support
[*] USB Serial Converter verbose debug
[*] USB Generic Serial Driver
< > USB Digi International AccelePort USB Serial Driver
<*> USB Handspring Visor Driver
Then rebuild, install, and reboot your new kernel.
As far as sync and PIM software. There's a couple of options out there. I went with the ones that seemed to have momentum.
pilot-link is hotsync software and libraries (it has an sibling coldsync that has made major contributions to the general code pool). Pilot-link has preliminary support for USB. Widespread devfs use will help. Remember when glibc2 first came out? :)
http://pilot-link.sourceforge.net
http://www.ooblick.com/software/coldsync/
root@synergy:~/pilot-link# ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/pilot-link-cvs
root@synergy:~/pilot-link# make
root@synergy:~/pilot-link# make install
gnome-pilot is a gnome utility that uses pilot-link. It even has a few conduits builtin and plenty of sample conduit code. I'm still looking for the PIM conduits. Very slick. Needs some work in troubleshooting bad palm connections.
root@synergy:~/gnome-pilot-0.1.55#./configure --prefix=/usr/local/gnome --enable-usb-visor=yes --with-pisock=/usr/local/pilot-link/
root@synergy:~/gnome-pilot-0.1.55# make
root@synergy:~/gnome-pilot-0.1.55# make install
Once you have the usb stuff working right gnome-pilot is a snap. Just add the applet to your gnome bar and away you go.
pilot-link is more articulate. Try this to list all the files on your palm.....
root@synergy:~# pilot-xfer -p /dev/ttyUSB1 -l
Port: /dev/ttyUSB1
Please press the HotSync button now...
Connected...
Reading list of databases in RAM...
'CityTimeDB'
'Datebk3HDB'
'HSAdvCalcDB'
'AddressDB'
'DatebookDB'
[etc.]
The way pilot sync was setup you had to push hotsync first then run the program. I hated it. I wanted the program to poll until I decided to push the button. My hackomatic fix is below. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference if you use gnome-pilot. It seems to handle the usb stuff just fine b/c it has a daemon running.
From James Weller
Date Saturday, April 7, 2001 0:35 am
To pilot-unix@hcirisc.cs.binghamton.edu
Subject pi_serial_open USB Visor Hack
All,
This is my hacked up version of libsock/unixserial.c:pi_serial_open . It
is linux specific and probably butt ugly, but it works for me and should
spawn a brainchild.
All it does is check /proc/bus/usb/devices for the string
Product=Handspring Visor usb_wait_count times. During that time you get
.... feedback. Press the hotsync button in under usb_wait_count and you
get the goods. This probably will break non-usb/non-linux systems.
I got the idea when my gnome-pilot wouldn't work because I forgot to
compile in usbdevfs. Trip huh?
Diff what?
Jim Weller
libsock/unixserial.c:pi_serial_open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
int
pi_serial_open(struct pi_socket *ps, struct pi_sockaddr *addr, int
addrlen)
{
char *tty = addr->pi_device;
int i;
/* begin jim weller Fri Apr 6 14:34:16 AKDT 2001 */
char line[256]; /* this is more than enough to fit any line from
* /proc/bus/usb/devices */
int visor_exists = 0;
FILE *f;
int usb_wait_count = 10;
/* end jim weller */
#ifndef SGTTY
struct termios tcn;
#else
struct sgttyb tcn;
#endif
if ((!tty) || !strlen(tty))
tty = getenv("PILOTPORT");
if (!tty)
tty = "";
/* begin jim weller Fri Apr 6 14:34:16 AKDT 2001*/
/* block until a device becomes available */
/* give ..... feedback */
printf("Push hotsync button now. Waiting %d seconds for USB visor
device
", usb_wait_count);
while( visor_exists == 0 && usb_wait_count > 0 ){
f = fopen ("/proc/bus/usb/devices", "r");
fgets (line, 255, f);
while (!feof (f)) {
if (line[0] == 'S') {
if (!strncmp (line + 4, "Product=Handspring Visor", 24)) {
visor_exists = 1;
break;
}
}
fgets (line, 255, f);
}
fclose (f);
printf(".");
fflush(stdout);
sleep(1);
usb_wait_count--;
}
if( visor_exists == 0 ){
printf("
Hotsync not pressed or no Visor found on port
");
return -1;
}
/* end jim weller Fri Apr 6 14:34:16 AKDT 2001*/
if ((ps->mac->fd = open(tty, O_RDWR | O_NONBLOCK)) == -1) {
return -1; /* errno already set */
}
/* crazy hack by Chris Hanson cph@zurich.ai.mit.edu */
/* much criticized on the list, but effective :) */
/* while ((ps->mac->fd = open(tty, O_RDWR | O_NONBLOCK)) == -1) { */
/* if (errno != ENODEV) */
/* return -1; */
/* printf("No Device. Sleeping for 1 sec... (hack)
"); */
/* sleep (1); */
/* } */
if (!isatty(ps->mac->fd)) {
close(ps->mac->fd);
errno = EINVAL;
return -1;
}
[...snip...]
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Guess what? I quit smoking! That's right. Tues night @ 11p was my last cigarette. Here we are friday at about noon and I haven't touched one. It's hard, but I can only think of the money I save. The experience floods me with emotions, cravings, and insights. I'll keep them posted here.
On the path to my ultimate goal of writing the PalmOS developers
howto, I'm really soaking up the knowledge. I just started my first
ever build of POSE for linux. POSE is the PalmOS Emulator from
3com. The source is available for compile. I'm keeping my notes in the
story that follows.
