• You can automatically save ROM images to a safe location in case your phone disappears.
• You can save pictures, videos, and sound recordings to your desktop without intervention.
• You can have near-instant access to resources from your phone on your desktop.

It took me about an hour to get this set up the first time. It is pretty easy, but I think it’s also worth documenting visually for others.

My configuration:

rsync for android by Michał Kowalczuk

1. Install rsync backup for Android by Michal Kowalczuk from the Android Market

rsync backup for Android

2. Open the application, download the binaries when prompted.

download binaries for rsync

3. Press the menu button on the phone, and choose “Generate Keys”.

Generate public and private rsa keys for android

4. Private key will be stored in /sdcard/dss_key, public as /sdcard/dss_key.pub. After generation you will be asked how to send your public key. (Press “OK”)

Storing Keys

5. It will take several seconds to generate the keys, then you will be asked, “How do you want to send you your generated public key?”

How do you want to send you your generated public key?

6. I’ll choose to send it to myself with gmail.

Sending the Android Public RSA key over gmail

7. We’re going to set the Android phone down for awhile now and work at the Ubuntu Linux Desktop (Any distro will work). You should have openssh-server installed. It’s okay to attempt to re-install it if you’re not sure:
sudo apt-get install openssh-server

8. After you install ssh, you should be able to navigate into a hidden directory in your home path (If this path doesn’t exist, you’ll need to create it):
cd ~/.ssh/

9. Now we add the public key that we sent to ourselves to a new line in the authorized_keys file, which may or may not already exist.
gedit authorized_keys

10. If the file already has text, skip to the beginning of the next line and paste all of the text from the email you sent yourself. Save and close the editor. (There are a hundred ways to add the key, I was just trying to make it easy.)

11. The public key is now installed on your desktop, and rsync backup for Android is ready to establish a connection. Go back to the Android phone and press the menu button in rsync backup for Android. Choose “Add Profile”:

12. Enter data into the setup fields. There are advanced configuration options a the bottom of the screen that are not shown here – you can leave them all blank for now. I did not have to create the ~/android_sync/ directory on my desktop – rsync created it for me when I began the backup. YMMV. (Be sure you add a trailing slash to your destination directory! -thanks Bill!)

The rsync configuration shot

13. Choose the key from /mnt/sdcard/dss_key (This screenshot is the result of pressing the “Browse…” button in step 12. It may seem a little out of place.
NOTE: if you do not have a file explorer installed, the rsync backup for android will prompt you to install one. Just go with it..

Navigate to /mnt/sdcard/dss_key

14. When you have completed the configuration, save the profile.

15. On the main screen, you can now choose the profile:

Choose the profile you created

16. Here is sample output from a successful sync. The .android_secure directory is off-limits to rsync and will show an error.

17. How about making a paypal contribution to the developer, michal@kowalczuk.eu ?

Incoming search terms:

• rsync android
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wine-116-itunes-no-devices.sh
(right-click the link to download this script)

to run it:
save the script to your desktop or home folder
open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), navigate to the same directory as the script.
type: chmod 777 wine-116-itunes-no-devices.sh (hit enter)
then type: ./wine-116-itunes-no-devices.sh (hit enter)

This script will build a custom version of wine 1.1.6 that will run iTunes 8.0.1 on Ubuntu 8.10. The resulting installation of wine will *NOT* (?) recognize iPhones or iPods. This installation will NOT conflict with your existing wine installation – it is separate!!!

Expect to download 500+ mb of stuff and compile for 2+ hours. I may find a way to simplify it later, but my goal now is to get it working reliably and predictably for everyone running Ubuntu 8.10.

Please leave detailed feedback including your operating system and version of iTunes as well as other information (i expect people to try lots of different things). “it worked” or “it didn’t work” are not useful comments!!
As far as getting devices to work, my best shot was Marteen  Lankhorst’s rejected patches (http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-patches/2008-May/054483.html), but i haven’t gotten them to work with iTunes 8 (not sure why). Just in case you weren’t clear: This version WILL run iTunes 8, but it will NOT recognize your iPod/iPhone.  My current solution for that is with VirtualBox: http://www.huanix.com/2008/11/03/fixing-usb-on-virtualbox-to-allow-iphone-sync-with-an-ubuntu-host-running-windows-xp/

For the latest developments on this, go to the wiki at : http://www.huanix.com/sync-in-linux/index.php/ITunes_8_through_modified_Wine

Incoming search terms:

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Updated to virtualbox-iphone-r7.sh on 11/11/2008, 3:25 CST.

• Removed check for ubuntu, since this will work on far more systems.
• Improved the check for /etc/fstab with a grep instead of a question.
• Started package cleanup; it’s not the best yet.
  
• Still no exit points
• Still only accepts simple responses (y).
• Planning to add support for Suse & Fedora soon.

This is a script that will modify the Ubuntu (or other Debian) environment to allow you to sync your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPod in a Windows XP Virtual machine. This fix solves two problems:

1. USB doesn’t work at all because there’s no mount point; edit /etc/fstab to fix it.
2. For the iPhone to sync, MAX_USBFS_BUFFER_SIZE needs to be modified in drivers/usb/core/devio.c

If the script works for you, please comment with your OS and details. If the script fails for you, PLEASE be very specific about what OS you are running and what did or didn’t happen. Comments without details don’t help anyone.

UPDATE: I’m not sure if i pointed out that you will need to re-run this script each time the Kernel is updated. The script now knows what to update and what to leave alone.

These instructions are based on my test environment. You do not have to follow them to the letter! Go ahead and try the script if you know what you’re doing!!!

This fix works on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex running VirtualBox-2.0 installed through apt-get. It also works on older versions of Ubuntu, and possibly many other distros. Be creative, but be careful.

Install virtualbox-2.0 through through apt-get:

1. edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following source:
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free
(intrepid is not listed on the wiki, but the source is working!)

2. Run “wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -”

3. Run “sudo apt-get update”

4. Run “sudo apt-get install virtualbox-2.0″

Restart your computer to make sure the vboxusers group initializes properly.

Run the script:
(be sure to chmod +x and run as root!)

Change the permissions to allow execution (chmod +x virtualbox-iphone.sh) and run it as root.
The script downloads the kernel source, and will take approximately 400 mb and several minutes of processing to run properly.

Restart again to initialize the modified kernel. (not sure if these restarts are necessary, but i’m trying to be safe!)

In the settings tab for the virtual machine, check to be sure that USB is enabled.

When you run windows as a virtual machine, you will have to connect the device, then go to the “Devices” tab in VirtualBox and enable the device in “USB Devices>”

These steps should set the stage for everything to work correctly on Ubuntu 8.10. If you have difficulties, please be VERY specific!

—-

Some people are having trouble with the USB settings.. make yours look like this. Your iphone may already be here, and it may not – i deleted mine to keep people from panicking if they didn’t see theirs.

—-

11/16/2008: I am aware of an issue where version 2.6.27-7 of the kernel goes through “make” while version 2.6.27-8 goes through update-initramfs. I am working on the script to address this. The result is that running the script works fine, but USB doesn’t connect. I think this only happens to people that have updated to 2.6.27-8, which appears to have been pulled back. A possible solution is to run “sudo grub-update” and boot into the 2.6.27-8 kernel, OR (i would do try this) “sudo apt-get remove linux-image-2.6.27-8-generic && sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-2.6.27-8-generic “. I have only confirmed this once (thanks Brandon) and cannot reproduce it because 2.6.27-8 is not available. Please confirm a solution if you have one. This is the relevant output from the virtuabox script…

(i need a good code highligher!)
Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST 1 modules
CC /home/user/linux-source-2.6.27/drivers/usb/core/usbcore.mod.o
LD [M] /home/user/linux-source-2.6.27/drivers/usb/core/usbcore.ko
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic'
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-8-generic
Do you want to get rid of the source and installed files?
—-

I’m working on virtualbox-iphone-v8.sh ; this release is intended to run on both Ubuntu and Fedora 10. I’d like to release it on November 25, 2008 – the same day Fedora 10 (Final) is released.

Incoming search terms:

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