The pilot-link suite provides the tools for communicating with
your PDA. The pilot-link programs provide the background functionality for
many higher level programs, but can also be used on their own as command
line tools.
Most distributions come with the pilot-link
suite available as an optional package. The package will be available on
the installation media or from the ftp site of the distribution. Install
the package in the usual way for your distribution. You may also need
development versions of the packages if you wish to compile any software
that uses pilot-link.
Note: Unless otherwise specified, the details below refer
to the 0.9.x release of
pilot-link. The version in development is 0.10.x. This version contains
support for USB devices, and has been updated to ensure greater consistency
between the various utilities. Once 0.10.x is officially released, this
document will be updated for the new version.
If you upgrade to 0.10.x, you will also need to update applications which use
pilot-link. In particular, J-Pilot and gnome-pilot need modifications to work with
0.10.x. J-Pilot 0.99.2 should work with the
latest version of pilot-link.
The pilot-link suite comes with most major
Linux distributions, including RedHat, Mandrake, SUSE and Debian. If
you intend to compile applications which rely on pilot-link, you
may need to install development packages as well.
If you use a distribution that does not come with pilot-link, or you
need a more recent version, you can find the latest release at www.pilot-link.org. As well as
the current version, you will find a link to the latest CVS snapshot.
Once you have the downloaded the source, unpack and
compile it as follows:
tar -zxvf pilot-link.0.9.5.tar.gz cd pilot-link.0.9.5
./configure
make
make install |
The programs can be run directly from
the directory in which they were compiled. You may wish to test them
before running make install. For more
information, see the README file that comes with pilot-link.
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 the programs, press the HotSync button
on your PDA's cradle. This will initiate the PDA
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, view the corresponding manual
page. There is an overview manual page under the name
pilot-link.
The pilot-link programs all use the same method of determining the
location of your PDA:
If a device is specified on the command line, that device will be used
regardless of the other settings.
If the environment variable $PILOTPORT
is set, that will be used unless a port is specified on the command line.
If no port is specified on the
command line, and the $PILOTPORT variable
is not set, /dev/pilot will be used.
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 |
This will copy all of the databases on your Palm OS device, (including
programs?) to a directory called ``backup-directory'', creating it if
it does not already exist.
To restore data to Palm OS device:
pilot-xfer /dev/pilot -r backup-directory |
Generally, you will only need to do this if your Palm OS device loses
power or if you have to do a hard reset.
To list the programs on your Palm OS device:
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:
Transfer the address database to or from your PDA.
To write your address data to a Linux file from your PDA:
pilot-addresses /dev/pilot -w storage.file |
To read your address data from a Linux file onto your PDA:
pilot-addresses /dev/pilot -r file |
