Sync Windows Mobile with Linux

Even after using Linux for a long time, I’ve allways been having Outlook on my Windows XP/Vista installations just for the sake of synchronising all my PIM Data (Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, E-Mail) with my HP Ipaq and my Sony Ericsson Mobile Phone. When I found out about the SynCE project, I decided to give it a try and after carefully backing up my data on the Pocket PC, I decided to reset my PDA to the factory state (I’ve been planning to reset the PDA for a long time as the Microsoft OS became too slow for normal usage) and sync my Evolution address book with it. By the end I was surprised to find out that the process of synchronising works better with Linux. (I used to have a very unstable connection with Activesync/Windows Mobile Device Center. One out of maybe thirty attempts used to be successfull). So I’ll guide you on how i got it to work.

FYI. The PDA is a HP iPaq hx2490 running Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC. My laptop runs a minimal install of Ubuntu ~~8.10~~ 8.04 with Xfce.

Do not plugin the cable/cradle.

First, Add the following lines to the /etc/apt/sources.list file

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/synce/ubuntu/ hardy main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/synce/ubuntu/ hardy main

Then run

sudo apt-get update

We dont want the ipaq kernel module to interfere. So first execute

rmmod ipaq

to remove the module from memory. And then add the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file

blacklist ipaq

Once you’ve done that, install synce-sync-engine with the command

sudo apt-get install synce-sync-engine

This should install all the dependant packages too. A package called odccm is also installed and started as a service. The output of this package can help us with determining a proper connection. Now run the following commands to stop the service and start it again in the forground.

sudo /etc/init.d/odccm stop sudo odccm -f

Now turn on your Windows Mobile Device and connect it using a USB Cable/Cradle. You should see some output similar to this (a few values might differ)

** (process:15855): DEBUG: PDA network interface discovered! udi='/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_80_00_60_0f_e8_00' ** (process:15855): DEBUG: device_info_received ** (process:15855): DEBUG: 94 e4 62 9b 2c 11 db a6 39 e4 73 9a 34 55 91 00 05 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 48 00 54 00 43 00 5f 00 54 00 79 00 54 00 4e 00 5f 00 49 00 49 00 00 00 05 02 54 06 11 0a 00 00 05 00 00 00 d3 77 79 79 00 00 00 00 0f 00 00 00 50 6f 63 6b 65 74 50 43 00 53 53 44 4b 00 00 06 00 00 00 4b 61 69 73 65 72 00 02 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 0c 00 00 00 5d 00 00 00 01 00 00 00
If you get a similar output, you are ready to continue to sync. If you dont see this, but get a line something like this
** (process:15855): DEBUG: PDA network interface discovered! udi='/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_80_00_60_0f_e8_00'
then try the following

Make sure the ipaq module is not running by using the lsmod command
Check your PDA for a setting on USB cable connectivity. It should be set to USB RNDIS mode. Some Windows Mobile 5 devices and all Windows Mobile 6 devices have an aplet called Activesync mode or something similar to check/change this. (Mine didnt have this when i bought it, but i found that it had been added during some of my experiments with different cabs :P)
Check http://www.synce.org/moin/SynceInstallation/Connecting for more trubleshooting options. Especialy the Motorolla Q.

Once you are connected, Unplug your device. Now Open another terminal (or switch to another prompt) and execute

sudo synce-sync-engine

Now plugin your device and you should see some output on the synce-sync engine console and the odccm console. Open yet another terminal and install the following.

sudo apt-get install libopensync0 python-opensync multisync-tools opensync-plugin-synce opensync-plugin-evolution

Once the install is over, run the following commands to create a sync pair between evolution and synce.

msynctool --addgroup synce-sync msynctool --addmember synce-sync synce-opensync-plugin msynctool --addmember synce-sync evo2-sync

then to synchronise run

msynctool --sync synce-sync

So there we should see some more text being prented by synce-sync-engine and we should land with a happy Sync pair.

Also look into this page… http://www.synce.org/moin/FrontPage

I might have missed out a point or so… If so do point it out… but this was the only wiki i read through to get this to work