This is a port of the MalSync 2.0.7 to OS/2. MalSync is a command line tool that allows Palm Pilots to synchronize to the AvantGo.com server.

MalSync was originally developed by Tom Whittaker (http://www.tomw.org/malsync/).

On the hardware side you'll need an Palm device with AvantGo software installed. Pilot-Link, on which MalSync relies, only supports serial cradles, so if you have an USB cradle, you're out of luck, sorry.

This malsync port should work on any 32-Bit OS/2, i.e. version 2.0 or newer. The only required thing is the EMX 0.9d Fix4 runtime. For only using MalSync, installing the Pilot-Link OS/2 port is not necessary (only for compilation).

I've packed the standard binary ZIP and the UnixOS/2 package into an unixish file system structure (see the proposed UnixOS2 filesystem hierarchy). If you already have such a hierarchy, just unzip the binary ZIP into your %UNIXROOT% root directory. Or just use the UnixOS/2 package utils to install the provided UnixOS/2 package.

If you don't have such an unixish file system hierarchy or just don't like it, feel free to copy all the files from the subdirectories into a single directory. This will of course also work.

Before you can use MalSync you have to set two environment variables. I suggest that you put these into a CMD file or maybe in your config.sys:

• PILOTPORT
  Tells MalSync (and Pilot-Link) to which COM port your palm is connected. Example:
  SET PILOTPORT=COM2
• PILOTRATE
  Determines the speed of your COM port. Setting the speed to high can provoke connection problems (see section OS/2-specific bugs and limitations). Example:
  SET PILOTPORT=57600

If you want to recompile MalSync, any GCC for OS/2 should do it. I've used GCC 3.2.1, but any not-really-antique version should work, too. You also need to have the OS/2 port of Pilot-Link somewhere on your system.

Please be aware that this has been some kind of a quick'n'dirty port, so don't expect a clean and warning-free compile ;-)

After unzipping the MalSync source package, change to malsync-2.0.7/mal/client/unix/. Please edit Makefile.os2.config, which you find in that directory, and change at least the PILOT_LINK variable to the directory in which you have Pilot-Link installed. Finally, if you have GNU make installed (not nmake), typing "make -f Makefile.os2" in above directory should start the compilation process. "make -f Makefile.os2 install-files" will install the files into your UNIXROOT directory.

• It may happen (actually it may happen quite often) that no connection can be established between MalSync and the Palm device. Then just end the MalSync process (Ctrl-C) and try again until it works.
  This is not MalSync's fault but it rather seems to be a limitation of the Pilot-Link OS/2 port, whose libraries MalSync uses. If you use a Palm device together with OS/2, you'll probably have come across Pilot-Link for OS/2 before and then you'll probably already know that problem.
• Daemon mode (-D switch) doesn't work

MalSync is released under the Mozilla Public Licence (MPL) 1.0. Please refer to the MPL-1_0.txt file that is included in all MalSync packages for details.

AvantGo is a trademark of iAnywhere Solutions, Inc.