I don't really know if this is really the right forum, because I want to get my PocketPC based smartphone talking to my PC (running Gentoo), so I can upload mp3's to the phone.

If it's the wrong forum, please move it.

So, the smartphone is one of these it's plugged in via a USB cradle (which is also the charger).

This is all rather over my head, as I don't know how to get the system to see the device, let alone what software or how to get them both talking.

I did try getting my system (via dual boot) to see a specifically set up FAT32 partition that only has the mp3's, but my windows XP install refuses to see the partition, even though it's formatted fat32 (I can see the partition using partition magic 8, but the bloody XP stubbornly refuses to see any of my linux logical partitions).

So any advice you can offer on how I get my system to see the device and what I need to try and do to get the system and the smartphone talking would be very much appreciated.

I've looked at something called SynCE but I absolutely no idea what to do with that either.

regards

John

I don't know about using a Windows Mobile device with Linux but maybe the other ideas aren't out of the question yet.

As far as I know, Windows shouldn't read Linux partitions anyway. You can find drivers for ext2 and others but they tend to be dangerous and corrupt partitions. As for the Fat32 partition, maybe something is wrong with the way it's setup? Using QtParted on the SystemRescue live CD, make sure it is visible and active. You could also try deleting the partition and then create it again. See if that helps at all.

You could also install Captive for full NTFS read/write support. It uses Wine style emulation with actual MS NTFS drivers so it is completely safe to use. That way you could transfer files straight from your Linux partition to your Windows partion without the Fat32 intermediary.

I also don't know all the features of your PDA phone but if it has WiFi like my PocketPC has or maybe Bluetooth or even an ethernet expansion card, you could always just start an HTTP server on your Linux machine and transfer them through the browser on your PDA.

As for actually using the PDA directly with Linux through USB, I have clue but I would also be interested in hearing an answer.

Well I'm presuming that there must be something wrong with the way I set up the fat32 partition in the first place, but if so, why can I see it under windows when I'm using the partition magic 8, but if I try too look at it via the XP control panel it only shows 4 primary partitions (the fourth one being extended into 3 logical partitions) it just shows 1 single healthy unknown partition. That's what I don't get.

Also I think (again probably making incorrect presumptions) that with the PDA/smartphone connected, even it it won't allow me to talk to the device, surely it should be able to tell me that an unknown device (or even that the device is windows based) it present.

Does this mean that I have to do something with my USB facility before I can actually try to talk to the device or is just that it needs to have a driver of some description?????


regards

John

Synce is the way to go, along with the ipaq usb-serial driver compiled in (as a kernel module), at least for my Moto MPx200 smartphone (It has just stopped working under 2.6.11-nitro2, so I went back to 2.6.9)

Well I have synce and the ipaq driver in there, and while I've actually had it working, I can't for the life of me get it going at the moment.

An aquaintance mentioned that if I have evolution, and then emerge multisycn with the evo and evo2 use flags, I should even be able to get it to sync the devices outlook as well.

But as I say, at the moment, it seems like a "no go" so I'll have to start re-reading and see if I can work out what the hell I'm doing!

regards

John

It was working great for me while using 2.6.9-nitro4. It doesn't connect (ppp) after upgrading. I've posted to synce-users mailing list for help/clues

I had a bit of a go this afternoon, I think it seemed to be connecting, but after checking the "multisync" logs, it didn't want to open the address to sync that.

I'm gonna have to keep looking. Thanks for the input though, much appreciated.

regards

John