The pilot-xfer does not make use of device lockfiles ("/var/lock/LCK..ttyS0" et al.) Since pilot-xfer (and, I suppose, all the other tools used for transfering data to/from a PDA in that package/ebuild) does not use lockfiles starting two instances of the program will cause the transfer to fail, without any error messages on pilot-xfer's part. (If data were sent *to* the handheld I expect some real unpleasant data corruption could take place.) I would suggest implementing the lockfile scheme spoken of in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt (under heading "Serial ports", at the very end of the file). I have no idea whether or not this is suggestion applicable/relevant when using an USB cradle, rather than one connected to a serial port.
(In reply to comment #0) > I would suggest implementing the lockfile scheme spoken of in > /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt (under heading "Serial ports", at the > very end of the file). Good suggestion, but wrong place. Please, take this upstream, Gentoo does not develop this app. http://bugs.pilot-link.org/main_page.php