Solution to PDA being SOOOOOOO difficult

Why is it that with every other dist I have used (debian, mandrake) all that it took to get my PDA operating was chmod the USB ports to 777 and then creating a sym link from a USB port to /dev/pilot....
OHHHHHHH YEA! How in the world did it do that?
Whatever. I just got it to sync. I guess that you need to make sure that you press your cradle button first. One thing for certain.... I usually have to wait for the sync to begin but it seems that with mepis it happenms right away.