palm@orbits.com
PalmOS is the operating system used by the Pilot, PalmPilot, WorkPad, Palm III, Palm IIIx, Palm V, and pdQ smartphone devices. Each of these gadgets is a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and comes with programs to help the user keep track of personal information, such as addresses & telephone numbers, meetings, todo lists and general notes. In this way, they replace the traditional paper address book, calendar and notepad. PalmOS devices improve on earlier PDAs in that they can synchronize their data with another computer. Of course the other computer must have compatible software in order to communicate with the PalmOS device. This software is often referred to as a conduit. Although 3Com does not support Linux conduits, Linux developers have provided a wide variety of applications which share data with PalmOS devices.
The latest version of this document can be read at
http://www.orbits.com/Palm/PalmOS-HOWTO.html,
and is part of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP).
This document superceedes the previous version, which was called the
Pilot HOWTO.
See
http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/ for further information
about the LDP and other HOWTO documents.
If you find anything in this document which needs to be corrected or better explained, please send me e-mail at the address above and specify which version of this document you are referring to.
This document is Copyright © 1997, 1998 & 1999 by David H. Silber. It is released under the copyright terms in the LDP HOWTO-INDEX document.
The
http://www.orbits.com/Palm/PalmDevelompent-HOWTO.html
document describes how to use the gcc-based development system to write
Palm OS applications.
The
http://www.orbits.com/Palm/PalmConduit-HOWTO.html
document describes how to use the pilot-link libraries to write
Linux-resident conduits for use with Palm OS devices.
You may also wish to look at
http://www.orbits.com/Palm/
for updates on the status of these and related documents.
Palm OS devices come with a ``cradle'' for exchanging data with the desktop computer. This device is actually a serial cable with a custom holder for the Palm OS devices and an integrated `HotSync' button. Plug your cradle into a spare serial port on your computer. When you run each of the stand-alone programs, you will need to place your Palm OS device in the cradle and push the `HotSync' button so the Palm OS device knows that it has to communicate. If the Palm OS device happens to be off when the button is pushed, it will turn itself on.
For convenience, create a device, /dev/pilot which
will be an alternate name for the serial port to which your Palm OS device
cradle is connected.
As the root user, enter the following at the shell prompt:
ln /dev/ttyS0 /dev/pilot
ttyS0 with the name of the port to which you connected
your Palm OS device's cradle.
The pilot-link suite of software tools allows you to download
programs onto your Palm OS device, and transfer data for the Palm OS device's various built-in
programs between the Linux system and the Palm OS device.
While these programs are not quite as seamless as the desktop
software that comes with the Palm OS device, they do allow you to copy your
data in both directions.
In general, each separate program in the pilot-link suite
manages one type of data.
The prepackaged versions will inevitably lag slightly behind the master distribution, but will be easier to install and not require configuration. The master distribution might be a better choice in those rare occasions when you have been waiting for a particular feature or bug fix.
You can get the Debian Linux (i386) port of
pilot-link version 0.8.7 from
ftp://ftp.debian.org/pub/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-i386/otherosfs/pilot-link_0.8.7-2.deb.
If this file does not exist, you will likely find a newer version located
in the same directory.
If all else fails, or if you want a more recent version than has been
packaged for Debian, you can install the generic distribution, as
detailed below.
Install this file in the normal manner and skip to
Using the pilot-link software.
You can get the RedHat Linux (i386) port of
pilot-link version 0.8.9 from
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/i386/pilot-link-0.8.9-1.i386.rpm.
If this file does not exist, you will likely find a newer version located
in the same directory.
If all else fails, or if you want a more recent version than has been
packaged for RedHat, you can install the generic distribution, as
detailed below.
Install this file in the normal manner and skip to
Using the pilot-link software.
For other versions of Linux or unix, or if you need the absolute latest
version, download the version 0.9.0 of pilot-link from
ftp://ryeham.ee.ryerson.ca/pub/PalmOS/pilot-link.0.9.0.tar.gz.
The version number is likely to change, but new versions should end up
in the same location with a similar name.
Once you have the software distribution, unpack it with:
tar -xvzf pilot-link.0.9.0.tar.gz
-z option,
decompress the archive with gunzip, as follows:
gunzip pilot-link.0.9.0.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
This will create a directory (pilot-link.0.9.0) containing the
source.
Change your working directory to the source (pilot-link.0.9.0)
directory.
Run ./configure.
This will search through your system for information needed to compile
the software.
configure will set things up to be installed in
/usr/local by default.
If you want to change it, run ./configure --prefix=DIR, where
DIR is replaced with the name of the directory to which the
software will be installed.
Run make.
This will compile the software.
The software will not be installed until later, so that you have a chance
to try it out first.
(If you are replacing an older version with a newer release, you may wish
to check and make sure that no functionality that you need has been broken.
Generally, this is not a problem.)
As the root user, run make install.
This will copy the software into directories under /usr/local
(or wherever you specified with the --prefix option).
If you can not log in as root, you can install the software to some
directory where you have write access.
Don't forget to add any new directories of executables to your search path.
Most of the programs in the pilot-link suite are conduits,
that is they transfer data into or out of your Palm OS device.
Each time you use of one of these programs, press the HotSync button on your Palm OS device's cradle. This will initiate the Palm OS device side of the data transfer. Note that not all of these programs prompt you to press the `HotSync' button, so you may have to remember to do it yourself.
For more details, and other options to these programs, view the
corresponding manual page.
There is an overview manual page under the name pilot-link.
For the pilot-xfer program, for example, type
man pilot-xfer at your unix shell prompt.
Possibly the most useful program in the pilot-link suite,
pilot-xfer allows you to install programs on your Palm OS device, make
a backup, and restore that backup.
To install a program:
pilot-xfer /dev/pilot -i program.prc
To backup your Palm OS device:
pilot-xfer /dev/pilot -b backup-directory
To restore data to Palm OS device:
pilot-xfer /dev/pilot -r backup-directory
To list the programs on your Palm OS device:
pilot-xfer /dev/pilot -l
Install a Linux file onto the Palm OS device as a memo.
To install a memo into your (already existing) project category:
install-memo /dev/pilot -c project project.memo
The name of the file will be inserted into the memo as its first line and will appear in the directory of memos on your Palm OS device.
This program grabs each memo from the Palm OS device and prints it out in standard mailbox format.
To view your memos:
memos /dev/pilot
pilot-addresses Transfer the address database to or from the Palm OS device.
To write your address data to a Linux file from your Palm OS device:
pilot-addresses /dev/pilot -w storage.file
To read your address data from a Linux file onto your Palm OS device:
pilot-addresses /dev/pilot -r storage.file
The pilot-unix mailing list is maintained by Matthew Cravit pilot-unix-owner@lists.best.com. Its mandate is:
The pilot-unix mailing list is for discussion and idea-sharing for those
interested in using the US Robotics Pilot PDAs with UNIX systems. This
includes people who are interested in helping to develop tools to allow the
Pilot to operate with UNIX, and possibly to develop an SDK for the Pilot
for Unix.
For more information, including how to subscribe to the list, send
mail containing the word ``INFO''
to
pilot-unix-request@lists.best.com.
The subject line does not matter.
An archive of the pilot-unix mailing list can be found at
http:///www.acm.rpi.edu/~albert/pilot/.
It is maintained by Chris Stevens
albert@acm.rpi.edu.
An FTP site containing an archive of Palm OS tools for use on unix systems
is located at
ftp://ryeham.ee.ryerson.ca/pub/PalmOS/.
It is maintained by Jeff Dionne
jeff@ryeham.ee.ryerson.ca.
XNotesPlus provides a means to post small notes on your
X-Windows desktop.
These notes can be shared as memos with your PalmOS device.
The XNotesPlus web page at http://www.graphics-muse.org/xnotes/xnotes.html contains full installation and use instructions. I suggest using the prebuilt binaries if you can.
One caveat is that you need to create an ``Xnotes'' category on your PalmOS device, if you intend to export notes.
One short-coming of the Palm OS device's built-in memo program is that it
does not deal well with large documents.
To compensate for this,
Rick Bram wrote
Doc, a document reader for the Palm OS device.
(See
http://www.concentric.net/~rbram/doc.shtml).
Documents can be converted to the Doc format with MakeDoc,
by
Pat Beirne.
MakeDoc can be downloaded from
http://www.concentric.net/~rbram/makedoc7.cpp.
Compile it with your C++ compiler and install the resulting executable
as ``makedoc'' in a directory in your search path.
There seems to be a small bug in makedoc (version 0.7a) in
that it does not output a newline as the last character displayed to
the user.
This does not seem to affect the resulting document file, but it is
annoying.
Use MakeDoc as follows:
makedoc data.txt data.prc "Data to display with Doc"
data.prc, which can be installed
on your Palm OS device with
pilot-xfer.
The text "Data to display with Doc" will be displayed in the
directory of documents that Doc manages.
The syntax for MakeDoc is as follows:
makedoc [-n] [-b] <text-file> <prc-file> <story-name>
or
makedoc -d [-b] <prc-file> <text-file>
The file that you wish to convert.
The name of the resulting file. (End the name
with ``.prc''.)
The name you want displayed in the Doc
or Jdoc directory of documents.
There are also options to decode the resulting .prc file
and manage various compression options.
Kenneth Albanowski Maintains the pilot-link suite of tools.
Donnie Barnes Packaged pilot-link suite as Red Hat RPM files.
Rick Bram Author of Doc.
Matthew Cravit List owner for the pilot-unix mailing list.
Jeff Dionne Original author of the pilot-link suite of tools. Manages the FTP area for the UNIX Palm OS/Pilot development project.
Mark W. Eichin Ported pilot-link suite to Debian Linux.
David H. Silber Author of this document.
Chris Stevens Maintains the pilot-unix mailing list archives.
There are two versions of the Pilot. They are the 1000 and the 5000 and have 128k and 512k of RAM, respectively. They come with Palm OS 1.0 in ROM.
Then came two devices with the name PalmPilot. They are the PalmPilot Personal and the PalmPilot Professional and have 512k and 1 Meg of RAM, respectively. They also have a backlighting feature for the LCD panel and version 2.0 of the operating system. The Professional also comes with a TCP/IP stack and a few extra programs built-in.
IBM has released a rebadged version of the PalmPilot Professional, which they call a WorkPad.
Now we have the Palm III, which has a redesigned case and an infrared port, not to mention the 2 Meg of RAM and Palm OS 3.0.
There is an announced product from Qualcomm, called the pdQ smartphone, which is a cell phone that incorporates a Palm OS PDA. Don't get all excited about it yet, it will not be released until sometime in 1999.
It is possible to upgrade any Pilot by swapping out the memory card, which includes both RAM & ROM. Of course, this doesn't get you backlighting for the original Pilot series.