Tom Moertel's Weblog: How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB

How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB

Tom Moertel — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:35:00 -0400

I just got a Palm Centro smartphone, and I love it. Getting it to sync with my Linux workstation, however, was tricky, so I’m posting this recipe in hopes that it might save you some time.

The “visor” kernel driver is supposed to make compatible Palm handhelds look like serial devices when attached via a USB cable. For me, it didn’t work. Instead, I had to blacklist the driver and then use libusb to talk to the Centro. Here’s the recipe:

First, blacklist the “visor” kernel driver:

# echo blacklist visor >> /etc/modprobe.conf
# modprobe -qr visor

Second, make sure libusb is installed:

# yum install libusb

Third, edit the system’s udev rules to make sure your user account can access the device files used to talk to the Centro. On my Fedora 7 setup, I found the right rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb_endpoint", \
ATTR{bEndpointAddress}=="?*", ATTRS{devnum}=="?*", ATTRS{busnum}=="?*", \
NAME="bus/usb/$attr{busnum}/$attr{devnum}_ep/$attr{bEndpointAddress}", \
MODE="0644", SYMLINK+="%k"

I edited the last line of the rule, changing the mode to 0664 and adding a GROUP key to assign the Centro devices to my exclusive user group:

MODE="0664", SYMLINK+="%k", GROUP="thor"

This change lets my account talk to the Centro without having to take on root privileges. (For bonus points you could set up a more-specific rule to match just your Centro. The rule above, as is, will actually match other devices, too.)

Fourth, tell udev to reload the rules:

# udevcontrol reload_rules

Finally, set up a Palm-device connection via gnome-pilot. Be sure to select USB for the Type and “usb:” from the Device drop-down list.

That’s it. If you’re lucky like me, you should now be ready to hotsync your Palm Centro!

Update: Even better, this handy HOWTO shows you to sync via Bluetooth, which is more convenient than hooking up a USB cable. I’m now using this method.

Update 2: If you want to use USB to hotsync your Centro, there is a method that’s more convenient than setting up udev rules. Just create a perms file for pam_console_apply that tells it to give the console user permission to access your Centro. To do so, create a file /etc/security/console.perms.d/60-libpisock.perms and put the following in it:

<libpisock>=/dev/usbdev* /dev/bus/usb/[0-9]*/[0-9]*
<console> 0644 <libpisock> 0644 root

That’s it. (You’ll still need to use libusb.)

"How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB" by Matthew Miller

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:43:03 -0400

For the record, in Fedora 9, everything seems to Just Work. It took me a little bit to figure out how to configure jpilot for usb, but once that was done, there’s no tricks.

"How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB" by David Mudrak

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:04:15 -0400

In reply to: David A. Desrosiers

Reading /proc/bus/usb/devices I can see Centro has Vendor=0830 ProdID=0061. Looking at visor.h I found these values are already there defined:

#define PALM_VENDOR_ID 0×0830

#define PALM_TREO_650 0×0061

#define PALM_ZIRE31_ID 0×0061

So this does not apppeat to be a point, does it?

"How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB" by Tom Moertel

Mon, 05 May 2008 21:57:34 -0400

Vaughn,

I haven’t tried mounting the microSDHC card because I already have a convenient way to extract images, etc. from the card: How to download photos and movies from the Palm Centro to a Linux desktop. Some of the comments on that page might contain tips you can use. Also, you can probably tweak my script to do what you want if other options don’t work for you.

Cheers,
Tom

"How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB" by Vaughn Grisham

Fri, 02 May 2008 13:42:30 -0400

Tom,

Have you been able to mount the the phone’s microSDHC card via the USB sync cable? There was a palm app called Card Reader that I installed. It worked but interfered with my ability to Sync via USB, so I uninstalled. It’s no longer listed as Centro compatible at the Palm software webstore.

Thanks, Vaughn Ubuntu 64-bit Hardy Heron 8.04 (Gnome)

"How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB" by David A. Desrosiers

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:36:45 -0500

The reason your visor driver doesn’t work is because it doesn’t have the right prod_id and vendor_id for the Centro, which was just released.

To get it to work, you’ll need to modprobe it with the right values, or add them to the visor.c and visor.h file, and rebuild that module (no need to rebuild the whole kernel, you can just rebuild the module and use that).

"How to hotsync the Palm Centro with a Fedora 7 Linux desktop via USB" by Kotts

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:28:43 -0400

Thank you! I’ve been whacking my head up aginast the wall for the past two evenings on this. I had gotten the rule down, but it didn’t occur to me to blacklist visor.

You probably just gave me a couple of evenings where I could do something more interesting.