Connecting with synce and Knoppix to the Vodofone Power Handheld

Update:

Sorry, there were links missing in the tar.gz. Corrected.
You will also need to create a symlink from (watch the dot) ./usr/bin/synce-serial-chat to /usr/bin/synce-serial-chat

Why:

To overcome the buggy local telnet client for looking at the output of haret I was looking for an alternative.
At http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8973&view=next I found a nice howto on how to connect
a PDA to Knoppix with synce.

The advantage for connecting the maui to synce is, that with the ppp connection you can access the maui over a TCP/IP
connection. The advantage of Knoppix is that you don't need an extra Linux machine and the Knoppix kernel supports
usbserial.

I used Knoppix 4.0.2 CD release which can be downloaded at http://www.knopper.net/. As this is a newer version of
Knoppix as "probono" used in his howto there are a view differences to look after.

Setup:

Download synce-knoppix.tar.gz and save this file somewhere on C:\ of your PC. Then reboot and boot into Knoppix.
After Knoppix came up mount your Windows harddisk, create a directory /home/knoppix/synce and decompress
synce-knoppix.tar.gz to /home/knoppix/synce and you need to load the modules by hand.

In /home/knoppix/synce you will find a file named "maui":


#!/bin/bash


# sudo insmod usbserial.ko

# sudo insmod ipaq.ko vendor=0x045e product=0x00ce


sudo ./usr/bin/synce-serial-config ttyUSB0


LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./usr/lib ./usr/bin/dccm


sudo ./usr/bin/synce-serial-start


export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./usr/lib

The important part here is the vendor 0x045e and the product 0x00ce. These are maui specific.

For the first run you need to uncomment the lines :


sudo insmod usbserial.ko

sudo insmod ipaq.ko vendor=0x045e product=0x00ce

After your first run you have to comment them back out :


# sudo insmod usbserial.ko

# sudo insmod ipaq.ko vendor=0x045e product=0x00ce

Execute "maui" as user "knoppix" (not as root!).

Now Knoppix is listening for a connection on the USB serial port. In this configuration synce does not expect a
password, so turn of the password for syncing at your maui (Start -> Control panel -> Password ->
uncheck "Each Time Resuming From a Suspend")

Next you can put the maui in the craddle.

Syncing failed at his point for me, so I did a reset of the maui. Syncing failed again. Then I started Start -> All Programs
ActiveSync and the connection came up. You can test your connection from /home/knoppix/synce by calling

"./usr/bin/synce-pstatus" (no quotations, watch the dot!).

You can test the TCP/IP connection with "ping 192.168.131.201". This should succeed. Now you can connect to haret
with "telnet 192.168.131.201 9999".

:-))

If you find any problems, or you want to use this howto for a harddisk installed Debian system, you find the original
"probono" howto and the used *.deb files under "sources" in the tar ball.

Lets have fun on Maui ...
Chris

Back to "Linux on the Vodofone Power Handheld (bSquare Maui)"

Last update: 11.01.2005