Palm PDAs are the best supported PDAs on Linux. Even when Palm releases a new PDA, basic synchronize functions are generally available with the “old” programs.

So far I used the PalmPilot III, the PalmPilot Vx, the Palm m103, the Palm Tungsten T3 and now the Palm Centro.

Here are some programs that work with Palm PDAs on Linux.

• pilot-link - command line utility for installing, backups, synchronizing, nearly all GUIs are built on this tools
• jpilot - standalone replacement for the Palm Desktop
• kpilot - standalone replacement for the Palm Desktop with KDE integration

All of them are available as binary packages for actual distributions.

There are also a lot of tools for developing your own software for the PalmOS, such as prc-tools.

Other interessting programs and sites are:

• AvantGo - commercial news service, but free up to 2 MB of news per day
• sitescooper - retrieves stories from websites for your Palm Pilot
• txt2pdbdoc - convert plain text files to Palm DOC and back
• plucker - offline Web and free eBook reader
• download.com - lots of palm software
• Handmark - more palm software

OpenOffice is capable to directly read, save and convert PDB files, which can be read on the palm.

A few (negative) words about the T3: The idea behind the T3 is really good. A PDA that you can extend for a bigger screen and use the small screen if you don't need so much space to view or look at something.

The actual T3 is really bad and the support from palmOne is horrible. Every T3 that I got into my hands makes permanently two sounds, a 50 Hz and a 400 Hz beep.

The 400 Hz beep is the system bus. You can reconfigure the system bus with the program Lightspeed. It allows you to set the system bus to different speeds. That has some advantages. You can tune your T3 to be faster, you can choose a slower rate to save battery and you can choose a rate where the T3 is not beeping. Sadly you can't do anything against the 50 Hz beep.

Another problem is that the T3 stopped working without any signs. I powered it off and it never went back on. That happened to two T3's, the second and third exchange unit. One exchange unit came back with a brocken bluetooth stack. Everytime I switched bluetooth on the T3 stopped working.

Hopefully all these things are okay in the following devices (E2, T5, T|X, LiveDrive).

This device device is now available in Europe and I just bought one. I must say it's everything I wanted. It's a nice, small smartphone with Palm OS, the perfect combination. The Centro is an all-rounder. It's nothing fantastic, no wireless lan, no UMTS, but otherwise it has everything I need. Look at the Palm website for more information.

Some features and drawbacks:

• Small but high resolution screen (320×320 pixel).
• Micro SD card slot (up to 4 GB)
• Completely made out of plastics (it's okay for this price). But you need to remove the lid of the battery compartment for memory card removal. And after some time the lid gets 'squeaky' while handling the Centro.
• Palm OS 5.4.9, Garnett
• The battery time is good, if you don't phone or use the music player permanently.

The best thing is, it is out of the box working with Linux. Every application that can sync Palm devices is working with the Centro. So use whatever you want. My favorite is still kpilot with kontact.

The above statement was a little bit early. There are some problems. At the moment I don't know if the problems depend on the Centro or my Linux distribution (Debian GNU/Linux).

Problem: The release of the USB devices ttyUSB0/ttyUSB1, while syncing with the USB cable, is not perfect. Sometimes the USB devices don't get released after a hotsync. That means the next time you want to hotsync the Centro again in the same session it is assaigned the devices ttyUSB2/ttyUSB3. Or the devices appear if you plugin the Centro, before you pressed the hotsync button.

Solution: It is no longer advisable to use the visor kernel module. Use libusb instead. Simply install libusb and change the entry for the connection port in the programs to usb:. gnome-pilot and jpilot already have an entry in their drop-down menu. In kpilot and pilot-link you simply type it in. For example:

pilot-xfer -p usb: -l

Don't forget to blacklist the visor module.

echo "blacklist visor" > /etc/modprobe.d/visor
modprobe -r visor

Problem: KPilot crashes while syncing the addressbook.

Solution: This seems to be a problem with strange characters in the contacts. I deleted my addressbook and could sync without problems. After that I imported the contacts one by one until I found the culprit.

I will add more info about the Centro, from time to time.

This report is listed at TuxMobil - Linux compatibility guides for laptops, notebooks, PDAs, mobile phones and GPS. Also have a look at Repair4PDA.