Here's a brief howto on setting up a Palm Centro to work on Ubunty 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon".

ALL THIS CRAP DOESN'T MATTER. IT'S WRONG, AND ACTUALLY GETS IN YOUR WAY IF YOU USE ANYTHING OTHER THAN JPILOT. To get your pilot-link, jpilot, kpilot, or whatever stuff working, just point the source to "usb:" rather than /dev/pilot or whatever. Doing "usb:" works perfectly on everything the first time, and no hours of mucking around is necessary. So on Ubuntu: plug it in. Make sure it's looking at your "usb:" port and not /dev/pilot. Press hotsync. Enjoy.