5.0 Synchronizing Handheld Devices with Kitchensync

Although mobile devices most of the times have a specialized purpose, they often provide common functionalities like address books or personal organizers. A common task is to synchronize different utilities to have access to the same data.

Kitchensync is a graphical front-end to OpenSync. It enables you to synchronize several different devices like mobile phones, organizers, address books or just plain files by creating and configuring synchronization groups.

WARNING: Kitchensync is Experimental Software

Kitchensync and OpenSync are under heavy development. They are tested with some devices that are available to the developers, but might behave different with untested devices. Please do a backup of all data with the utilities provided by the manufacturer of your device before proceeding.

Before you start to configure kitchensync, you must install several packages that are needed for this application.

kitchensync: This is the main graphical front-end that is used for the configuration. This package is required.
libopensync-plugin-evolution2: Use this plug-in if you intend to synchronize with Evolution 2.
libopensync-plugin-file: If you need plain file access to your data, use this plug-in.
libopensync-plugin-gnokii: This is the Gnokii Synchronization plug-in to synchronize with Nokia mobile phones.
libopensync-plugin-google-calendar: Google Calendar Synchronization Plug-In
libopensync-plugin-irmc: Open sync plug-in for mobile devices that support the infra red mobile communication standard.
libopensync-plugin-kdepim: Plug-in to synchronize with the KDE address book (kaddressbook).
libopensync-plugin-moto: Plug-in to synchronize Motorola mobile phones.
libopensync-plugin-opie: Plug-in to synchronize with Opie/OpenZaurus and Zaurus devices.
libopensync-plugin-palm: This plug-in supports Palm handheld devices.
libopensync-plugin-python-module: OpenSync module for Python plug-ins.
libopensync-plugin-syncml: This plug-in allows applications using OpenSync to synchronize to and from SyncML based devices.
libopensync-plugin-vformat: Plug-in to support vCalendar, iCalendar and vCard formats.

All plug-in packages have their own documentation packaged. You can find this documentation in the directory /usr/share/doc/packages/<package_name>.

To get started, run the application kitchensync. The first thing you have to do is creating a synchronization group. In kitchensync, all devices that belong to a certain synchronization group are updated when you run the synchronization process. For example, a group that contains the file plug-in, the KDE pim plug-in and the plug-in for Motorola mobile phones could look like in Figure 5-1.

Figure 5-1 OpenSync Default Group

Several of the plug-ins have to be configured before synchronization can take place. Figure 5-2 shows the configuration dialog of the file plug-in that needs a directory to store all synchronization data.

Figure 5-2 OpenSync File Plugin

Note, that in some cases you first must configure your device to provide the correct interface to the computer. For example, if you want to synchronize a device with USB storage enabled, you first have to switch to the modem interface before the device can be used.

More detailed information about Kitchensync can be found in the Internet:

http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSync: Main information base for users of the SUSE OpenSync implementation.
http://www.opensync.org: The project page of OpenSync.
http://www.opensync.org/wiki/FAQ: Many common questions are answered here.
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/opensync-users: Users mailing list for OpenSync.