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To: doc-jp@jp.freebsd.org
From: Hiroyuki HANAI <hanai@astec.co.jp>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:15:49 +0900"
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Subject: Re: FreeBSD Newsletter 
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
To: Hiroyuki HANAI <hanai@astec.co.jp>
cc: cliff@ume.pht.co.jp, rab@cdrom.com, ellen@cdrom.com, msmith@freebsd.org, kazuhiro@pht.co.jp, cliff@pht.co.jp
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 18:36:50 -0700

> Are there any articles in addition to those you sent me
> before?
> We've almost finished the translation of them.

Yes, thanks for reminding me - there was a last-minute addition.
I'll append it below.

					Jordan

FreeBSD and the PalmPilot
-------------------------

by Oliver Fromme <olli@fromme.com>

So, you've purchased this cute little PDA, played around a bit with
the built-in applications, entered a few memos, dates and addresses,
and maybe you even wrote a reply to 3Com's ``Welcome'' email.  And now
you wonder: what's next?  You have seen all those neat applications
and games on the Internet -- how do you get them into your PalmPilot?
And you probably also want to backup its data onto your desktop PC.
The tools supplied with the pilot only support Windows and Macs - what
to do?

Fortunately, there are several tools available for making the
PalmPilot live happily with a UNIX system and that includes, of
course, FreeBSD.  This article can't be an in-depth tutorial, but it
should get you started.  It also assumes that you are already familiar
with the basic functions and features of your PalmPilot, as well as
with FreeBSD.  Note that I use the word ``PalmPilot'' throughout this
article, but everything also applies to the older Pilot models, IBM's
Workpad (which is basically an OEM version of the PalmPilot
Professional) and to the new Palm III.

Note: Most tools access the PalmPilot via the /dev/pilot device, which
should be a symlink to the serial port to which your Pilot's cradle is
connected.  For example, assuming that you've connected the cradle to
the second (COM2) serial port, you'd create a symlink to point
/dev/pilot at /dev/cuaa1 as follows:

   ln -fs /dev/cuaa1 /dev/pilot

You will also need read and write permission to the serial port.  If
you do not wish to run these utilities as root, one way of doing it is
to add yourself to the ``dialer'' group (edit /etc/group) and make
sure that the serial device is group-owned by dialer.


The first tool that we'll discuss is ``kpilot''.  As the name
suggests, kpilot is a graphical application for the KDE environment.
It is available from the FreeBSD ports collection in the
/usr/ports/comms/kpilot directory (if you're not familiar with the
ports collection, you should have a look at the appropriate section of
the FreeBSD Handbook).

The main advantage of kpilot is its easy-to-use graphical interface.
With a click of your mouse, you can convert text files from your PC to
memos on your PalmPilot and vice versa.  It also allows you to import
and export address book entries and exchange email messages with your
mail server.  Kpilot supports the POP3 protocol to retrieve mail from
the mail server, then transferring it to the mail application on your
PalmPilot.  It also uses sendmail to deliver any outgoing mail
messages that you have queued up on your PalmPilot.  You can also use
kpilot to backup and hot-sync your data and there is even a little
daemon program which automatically initiates the hot-sync process
whenever you press the hot-sync button on the cradle.  Like most KDE
applications, kpilot also provides online-help in HTML format (though,
unfortunately, there are no manual pages for those more traditionally
inclined).

Note that you also don't need KDE to run kpilot -- you actually only
need the KDE libraries (which are a separate FreeBSD port).  Without
the full KDE environment, however, you won't be able to use some of
kpilot's features and it's worth installing (from the ports
collection) if you have the disk space.  This will allow the full
online help, automatic hot-sync, and status display to work (these
require the kdehelp tool, KFM and kpanel).  In any case, you can read
the online help with your favourite HTML browser: It is installed in
/usr/local/share/doc/HTML/en/kpilot/.

If you don't like GUIs in general or KDE in particular, you should
have a look at the ``pilot-link'' port (/usr/ports/comms/pilot-link).
This is a set of command-line driven tools for talking to the PalmPilot
and also includes various libraries and modules, so you can easily
write your own programs (in C, perl, tcl/tk etc.) to access the
PalmPilot if you are a programmer.

The single most useful tool from the pilot-link port is the
``pilot-xfer'' program.  It supports a number of command line options,
the most important being -b (backup your PalmPilot's data to a given
directory, i.e. do a one-way-sync), -s (sync with the contents of a
directory), and -i (install a file on your PalmPilot).  Let's say, for
example, that you have downloaded a game ``foobar'' from the Internet.
To install it on your PalmPilot with pilot-xfer, you'd simply type:

   pilot-xfer -i foobar.prc

Note that programs for the PalmPilot have the filename extension .prc
(``pilot runnable code''), while other data files have the extension
.pdb (``pilot database'').  Since PalmPilot programs can be databases
too, however, this distinction isn't always adhered to.

Note: If you use the pilot-link port, one important thing which is
missing in the documentation is that the ``PILOTRATE'' environment
variable is used to select the speed of the serial port.  The default
of 9600 is slow and drains your batteries.  I recommended that this be
set to 57600 (the maximum).

Finally, if you're a software developer, there are several tools
available which help you to develop PalmPilot applications under
FreeBSD.  Describing all of them would be beyond the scope of this
article, so I'll just mention a few and leave the let as an exercise
to the reader.  First off, there is the ``prc-tools'' port
(/usr/ports/devel/prc-tools), a complete GCC cross-compilation
environment and linker which lets you write applications in C or C++
and compile them straight to .prc format under FreeBSD.  If you prefer
to program your pilot beast in assembler, then ``pila'' -- the Pilot
assembler -- is for you.  Another interesting utility is ``jump'', a
Java bytecode converter.  It converts Java class files to assembler
source files which can then be assembled with pila.  It produces
surprisingly compact and fairly fast executables, but it doesn't
support the complete Java language (e.g. no threads).  Both utilities,
along with many others, are described and available for download at
http://www.palmpilotfiles.com/Development.html

Last, but not least, the xcopilot port (/usr/ports/emulators/xcopilot)
should be installed on every PalmPilot programmer's PC (and even if
you're not a programmer, you might find it useful).  Xcopilot is a
complete PalmPilot emulator for X11 and needs only a PalmOS ROM image
to completely simulate a PalmPilot.  If you installed the pilot-link
port (see above), you can use its ``pi-getrom'' utility to transfer
your own PalmPilot's ROM to a file on your desktop PC, which can be
used by xcopilot.  All of this allows you to test new software in a
safe, emulated environment without risking the data on your trusty
pilot.

The PalmPilot is a surprisingly powerful little machine in a compact
size and, with FreeBSD's help, is quite easy to both use and develop
new software for.  Kudos to the PalmPilot engineers for a fine product
and to the many Unix developers out there who worked hard to provide
us with such a rich selection of utilties for it!

References:
 - http://www.palmpilot.com/
      3Com's PalmPilot and Palm III pages.
 - http://www.freebsd.org/
      The FreeBSD homepage.
 - http://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/palmpilot
      Software and documents for PalmPilot and UNIX users.

-- 
