I just got a palm centro and have been trying to get it to play nice with my linux desktop. This post documents the things I discover and problems I encounter.
pilot-link
Unixes usually talk to palm devices through pilot-link, which includes libraries that other progams use and some userspace tools.
USB
On most modern systems, the centro can be accesed via libusb. The old way of using the visor kernel module to create a serial device is deprecated. Basically this means that you use usb: (instead of /dev/ttyS1 or whatever) as the port to access the centro.
To test that you have connectivity to your centro, plug it in and run
pilot-xfer -l -p usb:
Then press the button on the usb connector, you should see a list of the applications and databases on the palm. If nothing happens you probably have a permissions issue. I couldn't figure out how permissions were determined on my slackware 12 system, with libusb, udev, and hotplug all working together it was complicated (This page from gphoto2 might shed some light on the situation). So I just looked at the owner/group of the usb devices being created, on slack12 they were readable and writable by group uucp, so I just added myself to the uucp group.
Bluetooth
I don't have a bluetooth adapter on my computer so I haven't been able to try this, but there is is a HOWTO on pilot-link.org.
PIM
jpilot
I use jpilot, I've used it since I had my palm IIIx several years ago. It offers straightforward desktop access to your palm pim databases, as well as dated backups, and software installation.
I use the picsnvideos plugin to automtically download new images and videos taken with the built in camera. I also use the included keyring plugin to keep all my passwords encrypted and handy.
You will want to go to File>Preferences>Address and tell jpilot to use the newer Contacts database.
Others
There are other ways to sync you palm with the desktop but I don't have any experience with them to comment about.
Usage strategies
So you've got a todo list and a calendar, how do you use them most effectively? Alot of people like to use the Getting things Done framework.
GTD basically boils down to a few key concepts.
- Capture everything - never make a "mental note" always capture ideas, projects, tasks, etc. in your trusted system. This lets you get things off your mind so you don't have to constantly think "what am I forgetting?"
- Make sure your todo list only lists physical actions - If your todo items are too amorphous you will have subconscious resistance to actually doing them.
- review your system frequently - when you let your lists get stale you stop trusting the sytem and you go back to always worrying about what you are forgetting
If these guidelines sound good to you, consider buying David Allen's book and/or checking out the vast amount of information on GTD on the web.
I keep a list of projects in Memos. I keep my actions in Tasks, categorized by context.
Movies and music
The centro can easily play music and movies. I have tried this with TCPMP and the built-in app, ptunes. Ptunes is better integrated with the palm, you can exit into another app and the music will keep playing, but TCPMP supports way more formats, the one I cared about was flac.
You can encode movies to watch with TCPMP with this mencoder command.
mencoder -vf scale=320:240 -oac mp3lame -lameopts mode=0:cbr:br=96 -af volnorm -srate 32000 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=250 input.avi -o output.avi
put them on the palm with this command
pilot-xfer -p usb: -i output.avi -D /
I am hoping that someone will make a jpilot plugin to automatically transfer files onto the centro, I can imagine lots of possibilities with podcasting or integrating it with my mythtv setup.
4GB memory card patch
When I tried to transfer a movie to the centro, pilot-xfer would give me an error that there was not enough space on the card which I knew wasn't true.
Insufficient space to install this file on your Palm.
The problem was that pilot-xfer was treating an integer as signed so it was seeing the card as having negative free space in a sanity check. I made a simple patch that fixes this issue. Use it at your own risk until this gets fixed in pilot-link.
$ wget http://downloads.pilot-link.org/pilot-link-0.12.3.tar.bz2
$ tar -xvjf pilot-link-0.12.3.tar.bz2
$ cd pilot-link-0.12.3
$ wget http://dave.frop.net/sites/dave.frop.net/files/pilot-link-0.12.2.4gigvfs.patch
$ patch -p1 < pilot-link-0.12.2.4gigvfs.patch
$ ./configure --enable-conduits --enable-libusb
$ make
$ su
UPDATE:Others have posted that there is a patch on sourceforge. YOu should probably use it instead of mine, mine only fixes the specific case using pilot-xfer -i, the patch on sourceforge looks like it fixes more usage cases.
software
The reason you got a smartphone was so that you could run all kinds of software on it. There are thousands of palm applications available but here are some lists to get you started.
"must have" lists
software websites
- freewarepalm.com - an embarassment of riches
- palmopensource.com - only open source apps
Networking
The centro comes with palm's basic email client, versamail. I was able to get this working with with my personal email server (qmail + jms1 patch, and pine imapd.) It seems to work OK but I haven't figured out all the features when it comes to the "Trash" and "Sent" folders.
UPDATE: I was having some problems with imap, I started using dovecot and everthing is working fine again. I have not configured folders yet, I only use the inbox.
SSH
The coolest thing I can do on my centro is logging into my machine with ssh and having a pocket sized terminal with an almost full keyboard. There are a handful of palmos ssh clients, but the one I use is TuSSH. Yes it really works!
'''UPDATE:''' Tussh stopped working for me after I upgraded the opensshd version on my server, I have been using pssh and it works just as well.
Note that the centro cannot multitask, so if you switch to another application, you will lose your connection to the ssh server.
Network Sync
I am trying to research how to do some kind of network sync. Some groupware suites claim to do it, to varying extents. I would like to be able to manipulate my Todos and calender over the web when I am sitting in front of a computer instead of getting my phone out of my pocket.
Let me know if you know of any suitable software.
Annoyances
The centro is nice but some things about it just suck.
There is no search facility, my palmIIx was able to search all the pim databases, but for some reason this functionality is missing. Its especially annoying that you can't search mail. If my IIIx's 15 mhz processor could do this why can't the centro? UPDATE:A reader wrote in that you can search by hitting the function key and the shift key, which seems obvious now that I realize that there is a magnifying glass on the shift key.
How the heck are you supposed to enter an underscore in a URL in the Blazer browser? UPDATE: Thanks to the commenter who let me know that you can insert special characters into the URL by entering - and then pressing alt. In most other apps you hit space and then alt.
Crashing
I can't seem to run any fun applications like mame emulators becuase they always crash the phone!
I cannot get Opera Mini to run due to the crashing problem.
Versamail decides it wants to crash the phone every now and then :(
Hi Dave,
first of all, thanks for your suggestion. Just now the Centro have a good price here in Brasil and I intend to buy one that works fine with Ubuntu.
Which distribution were you using at the time you post?
Is centro touch screen ? Is Palm hand writing present like in old palmtops?
Thanks again.
Hit - and then hit Alt :)
Awesome thanks!. That will make it much eaier for me to enter wikipedia URLS!
I live in Phoenix, and my Palm Centro is IMPOSSIBLE to see, even in the shade, when outside, and even with the brightness at 100%. And if I'm inside where I can see it, I'll use a land line phone! This phone is almost useless!
Also, characters, such as the time, are very difficult to read because of size, and I haven't found an option to increase the size.
I find that my display is very bright, I usually keep it only at about 1/3rd brighntess. I have no problems reading in sunlight when the display is shaded, maybe you got a bad unit?
Yes font size is a problem. Palm devices of the past had larger screens and the font was just right, but on the smaller screen they are a big problem. I am sure there are some hacks that you can use to increase the font size but I am not familiar with them.
"There is no search facility, my palmIIx was able to search all the pim databases, but for some reason this functionality is missing. Its especially annoying that you can't search mail. If my IIIx's 15 mhz processor could do this why can't the centro?"
They hid it well, but it is there. Hold down "Option" (the key with the big white blob on it), and hit the "shift" key (which has a spyglass on it). Voila, a search box.
Thanks for putting up your findings - keep exploring! :)
If you look at the keyboard, there's a magnifying glass (the search icon) on the shift key. So, just like all the other buttons on the keyboard you use the alt-key to access the alternate use of the key. Same as using Alt-P to brink up the brightness adjustment.
Awesome thanks alot!
The patch works great. Many thanks.
Built it successfully but didn't know that I needed the libusb-dev package to make it actually work :p But finally:
$ pilot-xfer -p "usb:" -Creturns:
Filesystem Size Used Free # Card nameVFAT on SD 3865575424 1474560 3864100864 2 /Thank you, Dave, for this blog!
This looks like a patch at the SourceForge home... I'ma try it :)
The URL for your Pilot Link patch doesn't seem to work..?
sorry, I am still figuring out how to best handle files with drupal, I fixed the links.
Post new comment