Linux Unwired [Electronic resources]

8.8 Pocket PC

You can sync with a Pocket PC using SynCE (http://synce.sourceforge.net/synce/). If SynCE is not available with your distribution, follow the excellent instructions at the SynCE site for installing and configuring the software.

After it's installed, you can generally start SynCE with synce-serial-config ircommN (where N is the number of your infrared device, usually 0) and then use synce-serial-start (run these as root):

# synce-serial-config ircomm0
   
You can now run synce-serial-start to start a serial connection.
# synce-serial-start

Once synce-serial-start is running, you should run the dccm utility as the mortal user who wants to play with the Pocket PC (this utility communicates with the synce process that you started as root):

bjepson@linux:~> dccm

Now, align your Pocket PC's infrared port with that of your Linux system, and launch ActiveSync. Click Tools Connect via IR, and your Pocket PC should make an ActiveSync connection, as shown in Figure 8-24. Note that the progress bar never goes anywhere. It's just a live link between the two; it's not actually syncing.

To move data between your Linux system and your Pocket PC, you can use commands like pls to list files on the Pocket PC and pcp (may be Pcp on some systems) to copy files to and from the Pocket PC. Note that you must prefix the root of the filesystem with ":" when you use pcp.

bjepson@linux:~> pls /My\ Documents/
AC--------       57727  Thu Jul 31 20:00:02 2003  000013a8  Sample4.jpg
AC--------       67617  Thu Jul 31 20:00:02 2003  00001393  Sample3.jpg
AC--------       45053  Thu Jul 31 20:00:02 2003  00001386  Sample2.jpg
AC--------       64168  Thu Jul 31 20:00:02 2003  00001374  Sample1.jpg
Directory               Thu Jul 31 20:00:02 2003  0000134a  Business/
Directory               Thu Jul 31 20:00:02 2003  00001349  Personal/
Directory               Thu Jul 31 20:00:02 2003  00001287  Templates/
bjepson@linux:~> Pcp ":/My Documents/Sample1.jpg"
File copy of 64168 bytes took 0 minutes and 7 seconds, that's 9166 bytes/s.

The SynCE site includes a number of other tools, such as Orange (extract .cab files from Pocket PC installation packages) and a plug-in for MultiSync (http://multisync.sourceforge.net/).