[Kde-pim] Palm Treo 700p redux

Mon Dec 17 03:03:58 GMT 2007

On 12/16/07, Ryan Novosielski <novosirj at umdnj.edu> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:19:10 -0500 "Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper"
> <vr at movingparts.net> wrote:
> >On 11/15/07, Ryan Novosielski <novosirj at umdnj.edu> wrote:
> >> Now that I have a little more time and some decent equipment, it'd be
> >> nice to start helping out again.
> >
> >I would love the help!!  =:)
>
> Then I think we shall get cracking. I have access to a relatively wide
> range of devices (III, IIIxe, V, VII, T|E, 600, 650, 700p, 755, T5 and a
> Tx
> if I'm not mistaken). Some of them I'd need to borrow briefly and return,
> but provided I can restore them with an NVBackup, I should be OK. Most are
> unencumbered, however. Some I would be able to lend you outright, though I
> suspect those already work.

I have the IIIe, V, Clie NX70v, Zire 71, Visor, Visor Prism, Treo 650, and
the 700p.  =:)  So I have a pretty decent selection of geekly devices
myself.  The older serial devices have always worked pretty much out of the
box, so I'm not concerned with those breaking too much.  It's the USB
devices that keep changing.  =:/

Do libusb and bluetooth now work right then? I suspect not or you might
> have offered that as a solution. :-P

Well, it's certainly worth a shot.  =:)  I don't honestly know if libusb
would help solve this problem.  There's some work involved in using libusb
instead of the old visor module, so you'll have some work to do before you
can try that.  But if/when you do, just use "usb:" as the device instead of
/dev/ttyUSB1, etc.  I'd love to hear if it does any better for you.  =:)
I'm personally going to keep using /dev/ttyUSB1 until I have it fixed.

[description of copyXXtoXX being borked...]

> >Yeah, you're right, that's a problem.   I think the decision tree gives
> >precedence to full sync over copyxxtoxx.  =:/
>
> That definitely needs to get fixed. Copy-to is a very deliberate action
> and
> when one knows that, absolutely, no data on the originating side should be
> touched, it's a data-loss issue. It would certainly be good, for the same
> reason, to make sure that KPilot asks about overwriting the destination
> data. Right now, I believe you don't find out until it happens.

Yeah, you're right.  The problem is that there are some serious flaws in the
syncing engine in the 3.5 series.  Every conduit does its own thing for
syncing order, priorities, etc.  We made a huge effort in KPilot from KDE
trunk (4.0) to lay down a base conduit structure that contains all of these
rules so that we can make sure they're consistently correct for all
conduits.  Unfortunately, KPilot in trunk is completely unusable, so it's
not an option just yet.

Um, anyway, yeah, I know, we have problems.  I'm not going to be able to
address this problem in the 3.5 tree, however, since it would require a
major overhaul and risk significant other breakage.  My goal is to fix these
current problems with the 700p and other similar funky USB devices in the
3.5 tree so that we have an improved 3.5.9 release, and then hopefully start
in earnest in getting KPilot in trunk (KDE 4.x series) in shape.

>c) Magic happens (I'm not sure WHY a full sync even with a blank PC
> >> should cause the Handheld to become blank -- it didn't get the contacts
> >> since I cancelled prior to some other happenings... not sure if it
> would
> >> have blanked the whole phone).
> >> d) My phone has no appointments and no to do's.
> >
> >Hm.  You're right, that shouldn't happen.  In the 3+ years of using
> KPilot,
> >I've never once hit that myself.  =:(
> >
> >Sorry?
>
> No problem -- I've been very careful since... But I'd love to fix it, for
> obvious reasons. My girlfriend, BTW, has hit similar problems (did a sync
> -- she only has one computer -- and for whatever reason, recent additions
> vanished. Very bad.)

Um.  That's really weird.  That definitely shouldn't happen.

>I now have an SD card, so I can backup my phone whenever I want. I'd
> >> like to see if I can't figure out why both of these things are
> happening
> >> and if there is any way around either one (I know the second one
> >> wouldn't likely happen in everyday use, but it's good to avoid cases
> >> like this where an odd circumstance will blow away your data).
> >
> >I would LOVE your help.  =:)  I idle in #kpilot on freenode irc
> constantly.
> >If you need help getting started in tracking this down, please stop by
> and
> >see me.  And I would LOVE any code patches that you could provide.  =:)
>
> I will go there as soon as I'm able. I really need to get involved before
> I
> forget all of the specifics. I'd also like to make sure my girlfriend
> doesn't lose data, because she is less savvy and has fewer backup
> resources.

Yep, totally understand that.  =:)

>[ignoring KMail problems which I know nothing of...  =;)]
>
> I've lost mail, had mail re-ordered, and all sorts of other screwy things
> (my mail also takes like 20 mins to finish loading for whatever reason).
> I'd love to use the whole Kontact suite, but, I can't be losing my real
> data. For that reason, it's been sandbox only.

Hm.  What  OS, distribution, and versions of KDE and kdepim are you using?
I've been using OpenSUSE's current distribution and KDE versions for 3+
years now and haven't hit anything like this.  =:/

>Thanks Ryan!!
>
> Thank you as well, Jason. I know coming up with software like this or
> maintaining it can be a hassle (especially without access to the specs of
> the devices, and or in most cases, the devices themselves).

Ah, well, yes, you're absolutely right about that.  =:)  But I sit atop the
shoulders of giants.  David Desrosiers is the one to thank for the low level
pilot-link/libpisock code, which enables all of the palm syncing solutions
on Linux (and even some of them on OS X!).  Adriaan, Reinhold, and Dan
Pilone  (and lots of others) have built up KPilot to where it is today.  I'm
relatively late to the scene, having been involved only for the last few
years.  =:)  But anyway, I strongly feel that even with all of its flaws,
KPilot is the best palm syncing solution available to me, so I try to throw
in my help, keep it going, and help improve it.  I appreciate your help and
encouragement to those ends!  =:)

Phew... enough verbiage... back to hacking...  =:)

-- 
-[ Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper    //  http://movingparts.net ]-
-[ KDE PIM Developer         //  http://www.kde.org  ]-
-[ bash fun -> :(){ :|:&};:  //  Numbers 6:22-26 ]-
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