First Sync in linux with my m505

First thing would be to get the palm pilot syncing. I have a Palm m505
and it comes with a USB cradle only. First thought was that I would need
to go out an buy a serial sync cable to get the console.

But thanks to some awesome work, there is the visor module (created from
the original HandSpring Visor as it was the first Palm to have USB
as it's syncing technology.

So .. to get syncing...
I used this site to do my first linux sync.
http://home.earthlink.net/~cleryd/

Best part of all this was simple steps. Because I run debian (any many
other distros support this also), all I had to do was

      modprobe visor

This loaded the module into the kernel.
and I saw this spew up on the console, always a good sign (no errors)

      usb.c: registered new driver serial

      usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Generic

      usbserial.c: USB Serial Driver core v1.4

      usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Handspring Visor

      usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Palm 4.0

      usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Sony Clié 3.5

      usbserial.c: USB Serial support registered for Sony Clié 4.0

      visor.c: USB HandSpring Visor, Palm m50x, Sony Clié driver v1.5

next bit was to get the pilot-link

(thanks debian ...)

      apt-get install pilot-link

I notice there is another 'type' of syncing software, coldsync.
Didn't / haven't tried it, will tell more when I know more I guess.

So now, the test, let's back this baby up.

      mkdir somedir

      cd somedir

      pilot-xfer -p /dev/ttyUSB1 -b .



      * Press the HotSync *

:-( didn't work..

oh wait, I need the core usb stuff loaded...
(* took a guess, ohci (either that or uhci, there is a way to
work out what type of bridge you have, it's all in the lspci
from memory) *)

      modprobe usb-ohci

That worked !!

So now , try again,

      pilot-xfer -p /dev/ttyUSB1 -b .

      * Press the HotSync button, whammo! *

I saw this on the console..

      usbserial.c: Palm 4.0 converter detected

      visor.c: Palm 4.0: Number of ports: 2

      visor.c: Palm 4.0: port 1, is for Generic use and is bound to ttyUSB0

      visor.c: Palm 4.0: port 2, is for HotSync use and is bound to ttyUSB1

      usbserial.c: Palm 4.0 converter now attached to ttyUSB0 (or usb/tts/0 for devfs)

      usbserial.c: Palm 4.0 converter now attached to ttyUSB1 (or usb/tts/1 for devfs)

Now, notice a few things here, I had no idea if the Palm was on
ttyUSB0 or ttyUSB1. But I just followed what was done before,
and lo and behold, it was the right one because if you see,
The USB interface must have two logical ports, which the visor kernel module
must map to the 'serial like' devices USB0 and 1
.. and the "HotSync use and is bound to ttyUSB1" says it all.

cool!

Now on to compiling my first linux kernel into this puppy and blow it up!