Using a PDA with Linux, Part 1: Connecting Palm and PDA
- Connecting Your Palm to Your Linux Workstation
- pilot-link Basics
- Preparing for Installation
- From Here
Having trouble getting your current-generation Palm PDA connected to Linux? Have you discovered that the Palm desktop programs that came with your distribution simply don’t work as installed? Having trouble finding Linux software that will convert your files to formats that actually work with a Palm? This series explains how to solve these problems and get your two gadgets to play nicely.
Connecting Your Palm to Your Linux Workstation
If you have a Palm that connects via USB, common Linux Palm apps such as J-Pilot and KPilot won’t work as installed with a Linux distribution, no matter what you put in the connection port under Preferences. This is because both programs are GUI shells running over pilot-link, which, as ordinarily installed, doesn’t recognize USB serial links.
The instructions in this article, written for non-Linux experts, are basically a practical implementation of pilot-link.org’s readme.usb, along with an explanation of how to get J-Pilot working with it. In part 2 of this series, I’ll provide an explanation of file transfers to/from the external card, and document conversion to formats that your Palm can use.
Note that, in the following instructions, anything in monospace is terminal input or display, except within scripts. Any command line beginning with $ can be executed as user; any command line starting with # must be run as root.