To Mark Ellis and Whoopie: Syncing WM2003

[Jonathan Ellis]

Hi Mark Ellis and Whoopie,

In the synce irc channel, Jc2k mentioned you had managed to get WM2003
to sync. Can you tell me how you did it please? I need to sync a Mio 168
(PocketPC operating system) to Evolution.

Sorry to say I am a linux newbie having only installed it this week,
however I can use a command line now ("Oh gawd!" I hear you cry). I am
running Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon with the Gnome desktop.

I will be very grateful for any help you can give.

Thanks.
Jonathan

[Mark Ellis]

Post by Jonathan Ellis
Hi Mark Ellis and Whoopie,
In the synce irc channel, Jc2k mentioned you had managed to get WM2003
to sync. Can you tell me how you did it please? I need to sync a Mio 168
(PocketPC operating system) to Evolution.

He's a devil isn't he :)

Post by Jonathan Ellis
Sorry to say I am a linux newbie having only installed it this week,
however I can use a command line now ("Oh gawd!" I hear you cry). I am
running Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon with the Gnome desktop.
I will be very grateful for any help you can give.
Thanks.
Jonathan

I'll start with my normal 'thing', have you got a connection yet, ie can
you run pls or pstatus successfully ? If not we'll go back to that, I'll
assume you have.

I run debian, so hopefully ubuntu will be almost identical. All I ever
did was install multisync and libmultisync-plugin-evolution packages,
version 0.82-8+b4, and synce-multisync-plugin version 0.9.0-4. You don't
want multisync version 0.91.

Cant remember if I had to set up a partnership first, but try without.
Connect your device, fire up multisync, create a new partnership with
evolution and synce and try it.

Let me know what happens, or if you need more details. I'm making some
assumptions like you've discovered the package handling tools and such.

Mark

[Mark Ellis]

Hi,
Thanks for your kind reply. I haven't got a connection yet - cant run pls

Aha, ok, must document this sometime. In fact I'll copy to the users
list for posterity.

Again, if you're not sure how to do something specific then just ask, since I'm not sure how much you've picked up I'll propbably end up making some of it really basic and some a bit too brief.

I've got some deb packages built, that's probably the easiest way since the official debian versions are a bit old. Add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

deb http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ unstable main

and rebuild your package database with apt-get update. Then install the following packages. Upgrade them if you already have them.

synce-serial
odccm
libsynce0
librapi2
librapi2-tools
librra0
librra0-tools

Then copy the file /usr/share/synce/synce-udev.rules to directory /etc/udev/rules.d/synce-udev.rules

Open 2 terminal windows, in one run

odccm -f

Plug in your device, if we're lucky then odccm will produce some output including device_info_received.

In the other terminal run pstatus, you should get some information about your device

Let me know how it goes !

Mark

[Ochal Christophe]

Hi,

Post by Mark Ellis

Hi,
Thanks for your kind reply. I haven't got a connection yet - cant run pls

Aha, ok, must document this sometime. In fact I'll copy to the users
list for posterity.
Again, if you're not sure how to do something specific then just ask, since I'm not sure how much you've picked up I'll propbably end up making some of it really basic and some a bit too brief.
I've got some deb packages built, that's probably the easiest way since the official debian versions are a bit old. Add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
deb http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ unstable main
and rebuild your package database with apt-get update. Then install the following packages. Upgrade them if you already have them.
synce-serial
odccm
libsynce0
librapi2
librapi2-tools
librra0
librra0-tools
Then copy the file /usr/share/synce/synce-udev.rules to directory /etc/udev/rules.d/synce-udev.rules
Open 2 terminal windows, in one run
odccm -f
Plug in your device, if we're lucky then odccm will produce some output including device_info_received.
In the other terminal run pstatus, you should get some information about your device
Let me know how it goes !

Just to comfirm that these steps also work on Ubuntu, you might want to
specify your public key tho, and that the odccm -f needs to be run as
root (sudo odccm -f), well, on Ubuntu anyway, restarting udev does
enable the autostarting of odccm.

I'll post if/when i notice weirdness.

Cheers

[Mark Ellis]

Post by Ochal Christophe
Hi,

Post by Mark Ellis

Hi,
Thanks for your kind reply. I haven't got a connection yet - cant run pls

Aha, ok, must document this sometime. In fact I'll copy to the users
list for posterity.
Again, if you're not sure how to do something specific then just ask, since I'm not sure how much you've picked up I'll propbably end up making some of it really basic and some a bit too brief.
I've got some deb packages built, that's probably the easiest way since the official debian versions are a bit old. Add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
deb http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ unstable main
and rebuild your package database with apt-get update. Then install the following packages. Upgrade them if you already have them.
synce-serial
odccm
libsynce0
librapi2
librapi2-tools
librra0
librra0-tools
Then copy the file /usr/share/synce/synce-udev.rules to directory /etc/udev/rules.d/synce-udev.rules
Open 2 terminal windows, in one run
odccm -f
Plug in your device, if we're lucky then odccm will produce some output including device_info_received.
In the other terminal run pstatus, you should get some information about your device
Let me know how it goes !

Just to comfirm that these steps also work on Ubuntu, you might want to
specify your public key tho, and that the odccm -f needs to be run as
root (sudo odccm -f), well, on Ubuntu anyway, restarting udev does
enable the autostarting of odccm.
I'll post if/when i notice weirdness.
Cheers

Glad to hear it works. If you look at www.mpellis.org.uk in a browser
there are some notes there about my public key.

Running odccm as root is standard wherever you are.

Mark

[Ochal Christophe]

Hi,

Post by Mark Ellis
deb http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ unstable main

Syncing contacts and appointments seems to be working flawlessly,
haven't managed to corrupt anything (yet? :P), the only thing that
doesn't work properly is tasks, just thought i'd mention it.

Cheers,

[Mark Ellis]

Post by Ochal Christophe
Hi,

Post by Mark Ellis
deb http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ unstable main

Syncing contacts and appointments seems to be working flawlessly,
haven't managed to corrupt anything (yet? :P), the only thing that
doesn't work properly is tasks, just thought i'd mention it.
Cheers,

I dont know much about syncing PIM items unfortunately. My tasks sync as
well as anything else, but that multisync is old and probably not
completely dependable. Hopefully John will have some success with
getting WM2003 support into sync-engine and we can start using opensync.

Mark

[Ochal Christophe]

Hi,

I've been doing some more tests with the .deb files from
http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ and seem to have hit a snag, for some
reason i cannot start a connection with the PDA.

Installing the packages works perfectly, i can run 'sudo odccm -f' and
connect my device, i created a partnership with synce-matchmaker and i
can check the status, however, having udev initiate the connection
fails.

The PDA tries to connect, but then craps out saying it can't connect, i can see that the ppp handshake is working through syslog, any idea's as to what could be going wrong?

Cheers,

[Mark Ellis]

Post by Ochal Christophe
Hi,
I've been doing some more tests with the .deb files from
http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ and seem to have hit a snag, for some
reason i cannot start a connection with the PDA.
Installing the packages works perfectly, i can run 'sudo odccm -f' and
connect my device, i created a partnership with synce-matchmaker and i
can check the status, however, having udev initiate the connection
fails.
The PDA tries to connect, but then craps out saying it can't connect, i can see that the ppp handshake is working through syslog, any idea's as to what could be going wrong?

Firstly thanks for giving these packages a good testing, I'm glad
someone finds them useful.

I'm somewhat confused though, from your earlier messages I thought the
connection was stable, has something changed ?

Mark

[Ochal Christophe]

Hi,

Post by Mark Ellis

Post by Ochal Christophe
Hi,
I've been doing some more tests with the .deb files from
http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ and seem to have hit a snag, for some
reason i cannot start a connection with the PDA.
Installing the packages works perfectly, i can run 'sudo odccm -f' and
connect my device, i created a partnership with synce-matchmaker and i
can check the status, however, having udev initiate the connection
fails.
The PDA tries to connect, but then craps out saying it can't connect, i can see that the ppp handshake is working through syslog, any idea's as to what could be going wrong?

Firstly thanks for giving these packages a good testing, I'm glad
someone finds them useful.

It's the least i can do ;)

Post by Mark Ellis
I'm somewhat confused though, from your earlier messages I thought the
connection was stable, has something changed ?

This is on a different computer (my laptop), my initial goal was to test
it over bluetooth, but it seems it won't even connect over the USB cable
(unless i manually run odccm -f)

According to syslog entries, the negotiations for the IP address take
place, and it's only then that the PDA will display the error, clicking
ok on that error ends the connection between the host computer and the
PDA.

At first i suspected my ppp config to be messed up due to earlier tests
involving bluetooth, but even purging ppp & reïnstalling it doesn't aid,
the only thing that remains is how udev calls odccm i suppose, i
couldn't find any errors in the logs i looked at (unless i missed
something obvious)

Cheers,

[Mark Ellis]

Post by Ochal Christophe
Hi,

Post by Mark Ellis

Post by Ochal Christophe
Hi,
I've been doing some more tests with the .deb files from
http://www.mpellis.org.uk/debian/ and seem to have hit a snag, for some
reason i cannot start a connection with the PDA.
Installing the packages works perfectly, i can run 'sudo odccm -f' and
connect my device, i created a partnership with synce-matchmaker and i
can check the status, however, having udev initiate the connection
fails.
The PDA tries to connect, but then craps out saying it can't connect, i can see that the ppp handshake is working through syslog, any idea's as to what could be going wrong?

Firstly thanks for giving these packages a good testing, I'm glad
someone finds them useful.

It's the least i can do ;)

Post by Mark Ellis
I'm somewhat confused though, from your earlier messages I thought the
connection was stable, has something changed ?

This is on a different computer (my laptop), my initial goal was to test
it over bluetooth, but it seems it won't even connect over the USB cable
(unless i manually run odccm -f)
According to syslog entries, the negotiations for the IP address take
place, and it's only then that the PDA will display the error, clicking
ok on that error ends the connection between the host computer and the
PDA.
At first i suspected my ppp config to be messed up due to earlier tests
involving bluetooth, but even purging ppp & reïnstalling it doesn't aid,
the only thing that remains is how udev calls odccm i suppose, i
couldn't find any errors in the logs i looked at (unless i missed
something obvious)
Cheers,

I may be misunderstanding what you are doing, but you have to run odccm
manually or in a bootscript. Udev fires up the serial connection but has
no control over odccm. Does that help ?

As an aside, I have got a connection over bluetooth to work, but it
wasn't easy, mostly because I knew almost nothing about bluetooth at the
time :)

Mark

[Ochal Christophe]

Post by Mark Ellis

Post by Ochal Christophe
This is on a different computer (my laptop), my initial goal was to test
it over bluetooth, but it seems it won't even connect over the USB cable
(unless i manually run odccm -f)
According to syslog entries, the negotiations for the IP address take
place, and it's only then that the PDA will display the error, clicking
ok on that error ends the connection between the host computer and the
PDA.
At first i suspected my ppp config to be messed up due to earlier tests
involving bluetooth, but even purging ppp & reïnstalling it doesn't aid,
the only thing that remains is how udev calls odccm i suppose, i
couldn't find any errors in the logs i looked at (unless i missed
something obvious)
Cheers,

I may be misunderstanding what you are doing, but you have to run odccm
manually or in a bootscript. Udev fires up the serial connection but has
no control over odccm. Does that help ?

Yes, actually, it does :) The reason it worked on the first PC was
simply because i still had vdccm lingering arround in my system (it was
launched at login), removing this makes both machines behave identicly.

Are there plans on removing the requirement on running odccm manually?

Post by Mark Ellis
As an aside, I have got a connection over bluetooth to work, but it
wasn't easy, mostly because I knew almost nothing about bluetooth at the
time :)

I've been using bluetooth connections for awhile now (with the
depricated dccm) without any real issue's, that part was actually pretty
well documented on the old synce site ;)

[Mark Ellis]

Post by Ochal Christophe

Post by Mark Ellis

Post by Ochal Christophe
This is on a different computer (my laptop), my initial goal was to test
it over bluetooth, but it seems it won't even connect over the USB cable
(unless i manually run odccm -f)
According to syslog entries, the negotiations for the IP address take
place, and it's only then that the PDA will display the error, clicking
ok on that error ends the connection between the host computer and the
PDA.
At first i suspected my ppp config to be messed up due to earlier tests
involving bluetooth, but even purging ppp & reïnstalling it doesn't aid,
the only thing that remains is how udev calls odccm i suppose, i
couldn't find any errors in the logs i looked at (unless i missed
something obvious)
Cheers,

I may be misunderstanding what you are doing, but you have to run odccm
manually or in a bootscript. Udev fires up the serial connection but has
no control over odccm. Does that help ?

Yes, actually, it does :) The reason it worked on the first PC was
simply because i still had vdccm lingering arround in my system (it was
launched at login), removing this makes both machines behave identicly.
Are there plans on removing the requirement on running odccm manually?

My package installs a bootscript in /etc/init.d. I haven't set it up to
run after installation because dealing with upgrades is slightly
complicated, but it's easy to do it yourself. Run the following

update-rc.d odccm defaults 30 70

to set up the links so odccm is run automatically at boot. The output
you would see when running it in the foreground (the -f flag) is then
sent to the system logs.

I've been working on a hal integrated dccm which should make this all a
bit easier but it's not quite complete yet. If you feel brave I'm going
to build a package for it soon.

Post by Ochal Christophe

Post by Mark Ellis
As an aside, I have got a connection over bluetooth to work, but it
wasn't easy, mostly because I knew almost nothing about bluetooth at the
time :)

I've been using bluetooth connections for awhile now (with the
depricated dccm) without any real issue's, that part was actually pretty
well documented on the old synce site ;)

Should be much the same with odccm.

Mark