[tlug] Linux applications for Palm syncing kind of suck (Was: I'm a glutton for punishment...)

[Dave M G <martin@example.com>]

Stuart,
> Hmmm. My understanding was that the PILOTRATE variable was relevant only
> to serial connections. 

From what I've read, you should be correct. And I can't say for 
absolute sure that changing the speed was the deciding factor in getting 
my Palm to connect. All I can say was I changed the speed setting, and 
the next attempt to sync succeeded. It might be coincidence, as there 
are clearly a lot of variables involved.

And, more than variables, there is a lot of mysterious forces involved.

Before I said that gnome-pilot was very flaky. I'm going to change that 
qualifier to *too* flaky. One has to press the hotsync at just the right 
moment, hope that there hasn't been some kind of error, hope that the 
whole connect/reconnect sequence is in the right phase, and even when 
you get that miraculous synchronizing screen on the desktop, it's more 
likely to get part way through and crash than it is to work.

So I looked up gnome pilot on the web, to just generally see what the 
deal is. And apparently it's all messed up. If there's a proper FAQ or 
main development web site, let me know, 'cause I couldn't find it. What 
I could find is scatterd postings in mailing lists saying that the 
gnome-pilot development project has been beset by all sorts of problems. 
Mainly developers leaving the project and the ones that are still on are 
too busy with other things to really get to work on it.

I can't even find out for sure what the current status of it is, or even 
if it's really being currently actively developed.

This doesn't fill me with confidence that I should really be using it.

What are my other options? J-pilot, Kpilot, pilotmanger, and pilot-link, 
so far as I know. Well, these don't seem very stable either. I've tried 
all of them, and I can't get any of them to connect. Or, to be more 
accurate, half the time I don't even know if I've successfully connected 
or not, or if the error output I get is because I've done something 
wrong or the application did.

In short, connecting via the palm seems to have been solved on a more 
base, Palm to OS level. But finding a half decent application to do 
anything with that connection seems to be a challenge.

If anyone has a recommendation for which they believe is the most 
stable, and why and how, I'm all ears.

--
Dave M G