Palm: September 2007 Archives

I've gotten quite fond of J-Pilot, the Linux application that syncs with Palm handhelds. I use my Palm all the time for writing, and getting the files into my Linux boxes is a big deal.

First I got pilot-link with Netpkg.

Then I found the J-Pilot package here. It even put an entry in the menus under "office."

I used the great Slackware tool, Pkgtool, to install it.

P.S. Before using this Zenwalk package, I tried about three different Slackware packages, none of which worked.

P.P.S. Anybody who says Slackware doesn't have package management ... tell 'em it does.

P.P.P.S. I have J-Pilot, but I can't get it to sync. (Related info: Easiest sync: Debian Etch; hard but doable: Ubuntu).

P.P.P.S. I find out here that I need to set the device as /dev/pilot1. Thanks Zenwalkers!

P.P.P.P.S. I've used both J-Pilot and GNOME-Pilot. If you spend a lot of time in the Evolution mail program, GNOME-Pilot is a good thing, and in GNOME it's easier to manage your Palm. Plus you can sync at any time, even if Evolution is not open. J-Pilot, in general, is a quite a bit lighter than Evolution, and unless you're using Evolution as your mail client, it might be too much for the task. But both work. I haven't tried Kpilot since I'm not running KDE on anything right now.

Palm's VersaMail pretty much only works with Windows. Even the Mac client doesn't support it, so I'm not all that pissed that it doesn't work in J-Pilot or GNOME-Pilot (to my knowledge anyway). Besides, my Palm Tungsten E doesn't work with most mail systems anyway. For that you need a newer Palm. Great strategy ... right? That's probably why Palm is doing so gosh-darned well.

I decided that I needed the Palm back in my life. I can maybe steal a minute or two hear and there to write, and if I use pen and paper, chances are whatever it is will never make it into print/online because things change and what I wrote is no longer up to the minute.

My Palm Tungsten E had gone totally dead. I had to restore everything with a sync, and by some kind of magic, my Palm infrared keyboard suddenly started working again.

So it was time to get the Palm and Linux talking to each other.

The usual suspects are J-Pilot, Kpilot and GNOME-Pilot, the latter of which works with the Evolution mail client.

I'd had bad experiences before in Ubuntu with J-Pilot -- it's hell just to get the Palm to sync with the Linux box.

This time it was different.

I began with GNOME-Pilot in Debian. I managed to add Palm to the GNOME panel and turn it on. Then all I did was hit sync on the Palm, and the transfer began. All my data flowed to the box, and much of it was accessible via Evolution. I really only need to access the Memos from the Palm, but it was a bonus to have Addresses and Calendar there, too. My Word-compatible files from Documents to Go are probably in there, too, but I'm in no hurry to find them just yet.

Now that my Palm and Evolution were talking, I figured it was time to give the mail client a try. Previously I had problems configuring Evolution, but not this time. I programmed my IMAP account and was reading mail in about three minutes. Turns out I like Evolution. I've already given up Sylpheed for Thunderbird and Seamonkey, and at this point I like Evolution. I can't say whether it's better or worse than Thunderbird at this point. It seems about the same, except that Evolution has the aforementioned Palm hookup.

However, I also tried J-Pilot in Xubuntu, and after some frustration, I did a little Googling and found out that I needed to open a terminal and type:

sudo modprobe visor

I already had /dev/ttyUSB1 as my device, and after the modprobe command, it started working. I can hit the J-pilot sync button, then the Palm's sync button, and the data begins flowing.

J-Pilot has a nice interface, and it's less complicated than Evolution, because it's devoted to the Palm.

P.S. I tried awhile back to install the Windows version of Palm Desktop under WINE, and that didn't work. Palm Desktop may be old, but it's ultra-quick and efficient.

Back to the Palm and Linux. Now that I have the Palm working in Debian and Ubuntu/Xubuntu, I'm pretty happy, and I'll probably be using my Debian-equipped 233 MHz Compaq laptop a bit less. There's something about hitting a button on the Palm and being able to write within a half-second that totally works for me.

So even though I see some promise in the new iPod Touch, but I hope it makes the Palm people think that maybe everybody doesn't want their PDA to have a phone in it. A new Palm is long overdue. And a native Palm client for Linux is equally overdue. But for now, J-Pilot and GNOME-Pilot are doing the job pretty well.