# Gentoo, Palm Centro, Bluetooth, Resco Explorer, and obexftp

## figueroa

I have a one week old Palm Centro that replaced my old cell phone and Palm TX PDA.  The Centro lacks WiFi but has bluetooth.  It comes with no file manager (a very poor one is offered by Palm for free) and no backup program.  I found a lovely, but not free swiss army knife of a file manager, backup tool, network browser (internet or bluetooth) in Resco Explorer.

My goal, then, was to use bluetooth to transfer files, especially archive backup files, from the Centro to my Linux desktop computer.

I bought a very generic USB bluetooth adapter (Integrated System Solution Corp. KY-BT100 Bluetooth Adapter) for $9.99 and followed the instructions at: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/bluetooth-guide.xml to reconfigure my kernel (2.6.24-gentoo-r4) and install the necessary software (BlueZ).

Resco Explorer uses it's own bluetooth ftp component to browse the bluetooth network and transfer files.  It's documentation at http://resco-net.com/palm/explorer/downloads/ExplorerBluetoothFTP.pdf says for a Linux target device "Must have installed Bluez (Bluetooth stack) and OpenFTP."  I finally deciphered that to really mean ObexFTP, so I also installed dev-libs/openobex and app-mobilephone/obexftp, both with the bluetooth keyword (not default - I added them to my /etc/portage/package.use file).

I plugged in the bluetooth dongle and found it automatically caused /etc/init.d/bluetooth to be started and I was able to find my bluetooth adapter and through it the Centro.

UPDATED: below changed the code obexftpd -b to obexftpd -c /home/username/incoming/ -b to show the full correct syntax.  Also - in my limited experience, the quality/success of the connection appears to be directly related to the state of the battery.  Full batter or AC power, good.  Less than 1/2 charge - large transfers fail.

To fire up the ObexFTP server, I ran: 

```
obexftpd -c /home/username/incoming/ -b
```

 from the directory I wanted to use and behold, I had a working bluetooth ftp server that I could connect to from the Centro using Resco Explorer once I set up it's internal BT Connections option (leaving both optional entries blank which appear to be ingored on the Centro).

On the other hand, I don't see any evidence that kdebluetooth can acomplish anything, though I'm sure it must be working for someone.

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## chuliomartinez

Yu can download Blue FTP from resco website

http://www.resco.net/palm/explorer/downloads.asp (under additional downloads).

kbluetooth - only has a client implementation of obex ftp, therefor you have to use a PalmOS server, such as Blue FTP (which is free if you buy Explorer), or Blue Files form softick etc.

Regards,

Miro Pomsar

Resco PalmOS Division

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## figueroa

 *chuliomartinez wrote:*   

> kbluetooth - only has a client implementation of obex ftp, therefor you have to use a PalmOS server, such as Blue FTP (which is free if you buy Explorer), or Blue Files form softick etc.

 

Whoa - great lead.  I ran BlueFTP on the Centro, and then with kbluetoothd running on the KDE desktop, in Konqueror I was able to go to:

bluetooth:/ and found my Centro showing as an item which I was able to browse to my hearts content - address: sdp://andytx/ (where "andytx" is the name of my Centro).

I think I'll declare success!  FYI - I'm running a stable x86 system so my Bluez is version 2.25.  I had tried the ~x86 version 3.30 but that version caused kbluetoothd to crash

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## chuliomartinez

Yup running stable for a few months, no time fixing build-systems... :Sad: 

There is something rather stupid in kbluetooth, it will disconnect after each operation (such as opening/listsing a folder, etc.).

So keep an eye on your device and wait until it disconnects, hope it helps.

Regards

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## figueroa

 *chuliomartinez wrote:*   

> There is something rather stupid in kbluetooth, it will disconnect after each operation (such as opening/listsing a folder, etc.).
> 
> So keep an eye on your device and wait until it disconnects, hope it helps.

 

Actually, this is similar bluetooth behavior (connect/disconnect) I note when working from the Palm Centro via Resco Explorer connected to the Linux box running obexftpd.  I did think it was strange (not efficient - but perhaps it saves power) to not sustain the connection.

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## mellofone

So there is no way to do this for free? I have to buy the Resco Explorer?

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