How to get the Palm Zire 31 (or other palm USB devices) to work with linux

The common problem: When you plug in your Palm Zire 31, it switches between /dev/ttyUSB1 , /dev/ttyUSB3 , /dev/ttyUSB5 , etc. even when
you haven't unplugged and replugged it back in.

You can type in 'dmesg' to verify this.


The solution: It will always change between /dev/ttyUSB1 or 3 or 5. We're gonna create a rule so that it creates Symbolic link between
/dev/ttyUSB1 , 3 , 5 to always be /dev/pilot.

Therefore you can just point Kpilot or whatever other palm syncing linux application to /dev/pilot

I'll explain how to do it in both Fedora and Suse. - This is for the 2.6 kernels

Fedora

1) As root, create a file in '/etc/udev/rules.d' called '10-visor.rules'

2) Open the file and insert the following: BUS="usb", KERNEL="ttyUSB[13579]", SYMLINK="pilot"

3) Now open the file /etc/udev/permissions.d/50-udev.permissions

4) Find the line which starts with 'ttyUSB*'

Make sure it reads: ttyUSB*:root:uucp:0666

If this line does not exist, create it.

5) Restart your computer (important)! (--or maybe restart udev - didn't try this on mine but it should work too)

6) You're done.




Suse

1) As root, create a file in '/etc/udev/rules.d' called '10-visor.rules'

2) Open the file and insert the following: BUS="usb", KERNEL="ttyUSB[13579]", SYMLINK="pilot", MODE="666"

3) Restart your computer (important)! (--or maybe restart udev - didn't try this on mine but it should work too)

4) You're done.




Once you've restarted your computer, plug in your palm and in a console type in :

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*

Notice the permissions should be 666

Now type:

ls -l /dev/pilot

Notice that it is now linked to ttyUSB 1,3,5,7 or 9



I haven't check out if this works on Debian based distros, but when I do, I'll update this.



Zubin Singh Parihar