Re: syncing over USB

[Larry Siden <lsiden gmail com>]

<lol> None of the above.  I stumbled upon the hack once accidentally
many moons ago while trying to get sync to work over USB.  Then I gave
up USB sync in disgust in favor of the slower but more reliable (for
me) serial sync.  Recently, I read a message where someone else
mentioned the "hack" (it will take me all day to find the message
again, so please don't ask for proof!).  So I tried to revisit the
issue and see if I'd have better luck this time around, I've gone
through a few new kernels and s/ware upgrades since then.

For the record, my distro is from Gentoo (www.gentoo.org).  I'm
running with linux-2.6.x (x=11 or 13, I think).  My "palm" is really a
Handspring Visor running Palm OS 3.1H3.

I know that the problem must be with the gnome-pilot applet and not
the kernel because pilot-xfer does succeed to connect with the Pilot
over the USB.  I just have to hit the sync button before I start
pilot-xfer so that the node /dev/usb/tts/1 will be there when
pilot-xfer starts up.  (By default, pilot-xfer looks for /dev/pilot,
which is a soft link to /dev/usb/tts/1.  Since my kernel uses devfs or
whatever voodoo came next, the /dev file node only appears when the
device is actually trying to connect).

One important question: In the pilot-applet configuration, do I want
to tell it that the USB port is "serial" or "USB"?  I know this is
like asking "What color was Grant's white horse", but in some threads
I've read, the authors state that you need to tell the pilot applet
that the USB port is "serial" in order to get it to work.  Either way
it isnt working at all for me, so I have to ask to make sure I'm not
trying something that's useless.


On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 10:41:57 +0000, Matt Davey <mcdavey mrao cam ac uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-02-10 at 03:22, Larry Siden wrote:
> > I experience the same trouble that others have syncing over USB.  I
> > know from experience that the work-around is to open the Pilot
> > Settings applet, edit the device setting for the USB, make sure it's
> > set to "serial", then hit the sync button on the cradle, then hit "OK"
> > to close the dialog and applet.  However, when I do that, I get a
> > message "Read/Write permissions failed on USB cradle
> > (/dev/usb/tts/1)".  However,
> >
> > $ ls -l /dev/usb/tts/1
> >   crw-rw----  1 root uucp 188, 1 Dec 31  1969 /dev/usb/tts/1
> 
> You say you know this workaround from experience?  Does that mean it
> used to work for you?  What has changed?  Your kernel, your palm device,
> your gnome-pilot version, the weather??
> 
> I haven't heard of this kind of workaround before, to be honest.  I
> don't see why the permissions test fails, as I'd have thought it should
> pass if you've just pressed the sync button.  I expect someone more
> familiar with the usbserial system might be able to shed some light.
> This port writable test is intended for a true serial port, not for USB
> connections.
> 
> What kind of USB problems were you seeing?  If you can't start a sync
> because of timeouts, you can probably fix this by increasing the
> 'timeout' in the applet to the maximum "100 seconds".  If you are seeing
> unstable syncs, bombing out and so on, it's most likely a kernel
> problem.  As you've probably read, patches used by Fedora kernels have
> been blamed for causing a bunch of USB problems.  If you're using a
> Fedora kernel, try compiling a kernel from source, without the Fedora
> patches.  You can reuse the kernel config from your Fedora kernel, by
> copying /boot/config-2.version-whatever to your linux kernel source
> directory as /usr/src/linux-2.blah/.config
> 
> Matt
> 


-- 
Larry Siden
http://umich.edu/~lsiden/