BCHARGE(1)BCHARGE(1)NAMEbcharge - program to set BlackBerry handhelds to 500mA
SYNOPSISbchargeDESCRIPTIONbcharge is a program that sends a special handshake to all BlackBerry
devices it finds on the USB bus. This handshake causes the device to
reset itself, and then request 500mA instead of the usual 100mA. This
allows proper charging on Linux.
It is safe to run this command multiple times, as it only changes
devices that are not already set to 500mA.
OPTIONS-o For Blackberry Pearl devices, using this switch causes bcharge
to set the Product ID to 0001. Otherwise, the default is to use
Product ID 0004. When the Pearl is in 0004 mode, two USB inter‐
faces are presented: one for database access and one for mass
storage. In 0001 mode, only the database access is available.
Before bcharge is run, the Pearl shows up with a Product ID of
0006, which only gives mass storage functionality. You must run
bcharge for the Pearl before using btool.
-d Again, this switch is for the Blackberry Pearl to switch it back
to 0004 dual mode after having run bcharge with the -o option.
Since a Pearl in mode 0001 is practically indistinguishable from
a classic Blackberry, the -d switch is needed to tell bcharge
that you really are working with a Pearl.
-h Help summary.
-p devpath
If your system runs a kernel with CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND enabled
(some Ubuntu kernels have this turned on, as well as some Fedora
7 kernels), then you also need to adjust the suspend state to
avoid going into power saving mode. This option is used when
run from udev, using a rule such as:
BUS=="usb", SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", ACTION=="add", SYSFS{idVen‐
dor}=="0fca", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0001", SYMLINK+="bb-%k",
GROUP="plugdev", MODE="0660", RUN="/usr/sbin/bcharge -p %p"
When using this option, you will almost always need to be root.
-s path
Specify the mount point for the sysfs filesystem. On most sys‐
tems this is mounted at /sys which is the default.
AUTHORbcharge and this manual page were written by Chris Frey
<cdfrey@foursquare.net> for the Barry project.
http://www.netdirect.ca/software/packages/barry
August 17, 2007 BCHARGE(1)
