~Toughbooktalk~

I have seen several people on here who talk about different gps software and what I am interested in a gps navigation software, land based not marine. I have the list of gps software to get the gps working in linux, just not mapping software, or at least not where to get it (site). thank for help.

FoxtrotGPS is what I use for nav software with Linux. If you don't have a working cell card in the unit, you need to download maps of the area you will be travelling in before you leave. Foxtrot uses OSM, OpenCycleMaps and a couple types of Google maps. FoxtrotGS can be installed from the repositories.

I use http://www.navit-project.org/ . It's a bit of a pain in the butt to setup but it uses locally stored maps that you have to grab yourself, so no net necessary when you're out on the field.

will either of these programs use regular network to function, I have tethering on my cell which is why I did not worry about wwan card, I would think they would but you never know. I have seen foxtrotgps mentioned here in the linux forum before, just not sure if that is the only one. I will try foxtrotgps and the other one mentioned, I have no problem with configuring linux, have done it hundreds of time for all kinds of reasons. thanks for the info.

Like I said: you don't need internet with navit.

FoxtrotGPS will download and hold map information down to the 6th or 7th level zoom automatically if you trigger the option while zoomed out over a large area. It will also hold on to higher level zooms if you zero in on those locations. It works fairly well with my BU-353S4, giving good accuracy (for navigation purposes) with a modest startup time. I know the 353 had less than stellar reviews from the GPS guru sites but it was stupid cheap to acquire. Performance, as I said, is satisfactory for general use.

It has been fairly straight forward to use and can integrate several map inputs. Not very expansive in terms of functions.

I have not used Navit but I'll try grab it next time I'm in shore and give it a shot to compare.

I use Foxtrot on both a CF-19 and a CF-29, the built in gps unit failed on the 29, gpsd picked up the dongle from MS Streets and Trips quickly, its a Pharos500 usb unit. I stored Open Street maps and update occasionally. I don't have an internet connection when I am driving, it does fine.

Look for another thread, viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2214&start=10
for hints if you need them.

I haven't used Navit but hear its pretty good also.

GPS is much easier to set up and use on Linux than it was in the past.

I actually had navit setup with spoken turn-by-turn in-car navigation on my Asus EeePC a few years back. I ended up never really using it much, though.

I decided to try out Navit. I am running Makulu Linux. I have spent all weekend reading through the wiki pages, trying to get maps to show. I get the circle indicating my position but nothing else. I have downloaded and installed all the dependencies listed on the wiki with no joy. Any tips?

You have to extract a map then edit the navit.xml config file to enable it. I use http://maps9.navit-project.org/ for a decent Open Street Map. Use this site to zoom in to your desired region, hit the select button to select a rectangular region on the map then finally "Get Map" to save your file and name it "osm.bin". Just don't go too crazy by selecting an entire continent to keep things small. The entire state of New York plus a good chunk of Pennsylvania and Ontario is about 350 megs.



Do this just in case the maps dir does not exist.
Move my downloaded file from /home/nick/Downloads (replace with your actual path) to the maps directory.
Then root or sudo open /etc/navit/navit.xml with your favourite text editor:
and search for this section:

Modify it to look like this:
Check to see that yours is the only one that is <mapset enabled ="yes"> and set the others to "no" if you need to. That should be a good start. There are plenty of other tweaks which I am glad to help you with. I'll do a screenshot of mine soon to show you how it looks.