palm pilot and serial port not seen - how to fix?
 

I've installed jpilot and want to use it with a Palm Pilot Professional which connects to my pc viaa serial cable.

But when I run sync I get

******************************
synching on device /dev/pilot
Press the HotSynch button now
***************************

pi bind No such file or directory
Check your serial port and settings

Exiting with status SYNC_ERROR_BIND


I'm using Mandrake 10 and can't find out how to configure the serial port.

Anybody able to point me in the right direction to sort this out?


S

I get exactly the same message with my Tungsten T3 (connecting via USB). I haven't a clue how to sort it out and I would also appreciate some help.

Nice thing that you guys use jpilot (I never been successful using gnome-pilot). As root type (while pressing HotSync button):

tail -f /var/log/messages

And see what's the ouput and post it here. For USB I use /dev/ttyUSB1 and I think for the serial port I think it is /dev/ttyS1 (but it depends on the output of your tail -f /var/log/messages). I use Sony Clie instead. The /dev/pilot is not there yet, you have to create it, but I think just /dev/ttyUSB1 is fine.

Also take a look at my post here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...highlight=clie

stumblefingers: I'll assume you are plugging your cable into the first serial port. This would correspond to /dev/ttyS0. You have two choices at this point with JPilot. Configure JPilot (through one of the menus) to use /dev/ttyS0 instead of /dev/pilot -OR- create a sym link for /dev/pilot. To do this, as root, type in a terminal

ln -s /dev/ttyS0 /dev/pilot

Also, if you want someone other than root to be able to sync your palm pilot, you must make sure that the permissions on ttyS0 allow others users to read and write...

ls -al /dev/ttyS0

If the resulting entry lists ttyS0 as either not readable or writeable for users other than the owner, use the following command (again as root) to change the permissions...

chmod 666 /dev/ttyS0

Baryonic: technically speaking, you should be able to substitude /dev/ttyUSB0 (or 1) for /dev/ttyS0, but I never have managed to get syncing to work correctly using a USB cable. One tip I could give you is that I have heard that you need to initiate the sync first on your device and then in JPilot for it to work successfully. Never tried it as I have it working via serial cable and just never cared to futz around with it again.

For myself, the tail command gives this output:

Jun 5 11:00:00 tux CRON[7312]: (root) CMD (rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.hourly)
Jun 5 11:10:00 tux CRON[22003]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Jun 5 11:11:41 tux su(pam_unix)[22017]: session opened for user root by (uid=1000)
Jun 5 11:11:41 tux su(pam_unix)[22017]: session closed for user root
Jun 5 11:11:41 tux su(pam_unix)[22021]: session opened for user root by (uid=1000)
Jun 5 11:14:41 tux su(pam_unix)[22055]: session opened for user root by (uid=1000)
Jun 5 11:15:15 tux su(pam_unix)[22064]: session opened for user root by (uid=1000)
Jun 5 11:15:15 tux su(pam_unix)[22064]: session closed for user root
Jun 5 11:15:15 tux su(pam_unix)[22068]: session opened for user root by (uid=1000)
Jun 5 11:15:54 tux usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using address 3

It may seem silly to bring this up now, but I have heard that the 'usbserial' and 'visor' kernel modules need to be 'compiled in' to the kernel. I don't remember doing such a thing when I installed Gentoo Linux, but does the solution involve re-compiling the kernel, and how difficult is that to do?

Baryonic: I can't really comment on what additional modules need to be compiled into the kernel. There may be some truth to what you suggest -- I'll let someone else who has gotten it to work via USB add to the discussion. As for recompiling a kernel, there are lots of good guides (both here on LQ and elsewhere on the net) to help you through your first kernel compile. My only suggestion would be to make sure you keep your old kernel around before trying to compile a new one (even if it is the same kernel source with the new modules added). This way you can play around with the new kernel until you get it working correctly. It probably took at least 3 or 4 times before I got everything "right". Good luck.

I've mentioned the additional modules that need to be included in kernel compilation in the link in previous posting.

Well, I'm actually not too keen on the idea of recompiling my kernel. I've got everything else on my system working just fine and I don't feel too confident about fiddling with it now. But thank you for your help.

Re: palm pilot and serial port not seen - how to fix?
 

Below is the fix I got from another forum:

"/dev/pilot is not a real port, it's just a link to the real serial port.

See section 2.4 of the jpilot manual:

http://www.henrikbecker.de/jpilot/jp...nual-en-2.html

"Firstly you probably need to make a soft link to an actual /dev/ttyS. So you need a commandline like:

ln -s /dev/ttyS0 /dev/pilot"

After doing that it now works fine.

Stumblefingers

Then to test it there are some other tools:

stty is the most useful. tells you the port settings etc."