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Two Ways To Use GPS With Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Whether you're wardriving, vacationing or building a Car PC, a Global Positioning System is a handy tool. Interacting with your GPS via your PC makes for an even better GPS experience. As a Linux user, GPS/PC integration can be somewhat sketchy. Vendors don't write software and drivers for Linux; it's probably safe to assume that the good folks over at Garmin would say something along the lines of "Lih-what?". Have no fear! Using your GPS with Linux isn't impossible! Check out this review over at LinuxForumsDOTorg of two fairly robust GPS navigation programs for Linux."
Yes, but if you were a corporation, you'd establish a failure ratio, then, regarding the guarantee that a dedicated system manufacturer would offer, you'd probably go for this one anyway.
Why ?
Imagine you are the owner of a supertanker fleet and they all use GPS to navigate.
Now, if one of these sinks at Valdez of in Bretagne, you'd have a hard time explaining to a judge how responsible you were not if you went for a self hacked system.
The same could apply for trekkers who could get lost because of a dysfunction.
BTW, I had a Zaurus and its battery life is just too low to make it OK for a GPS enabled trek.
And despite this, I'd love tosee Linux go mainstream but this'll have to be distributed through a commercial channel otherwise it won't be able to finance itself.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Listen, I'm as big of a Linux fan as anyone, but trusting my coding (or even worse, someone else's) to work on my specific build out in the middle of a fog when it's failure means being hopelessly stranded... That's a pretty frightening thought. At least if something is released commercially and it fails like that, you can sue once (if?) you get back to shore.
Open protocols and open standards, that's what we need!
And this is what we got. NMEA should be supported by nearly all receivers. It defines how gps data should be transmitted via a serial link. Even most USB units only use a USB2Serial chip, so they just appear as new serial ports.
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
Yeah, and I carry a copy of Bowditch, a recent set of charts, an RB sight, and a sextant for when the fool thing breaks... and I know how to use these tools, too.
and a sextant for when the fool thing breaks... and I know how to use these tools, too.
I've spent some time on a boat. Umm how do you use a sextant in the fog? I didn't learn that fine point.
The truth shall set you free!
I dont see why this is news. Most GPS devices uses NMEA which is trivial to parse.
Slightly OT but wouldn't the purposes of OSS be better served if they could find some kind of input into Galileo, the competitor to GPS? GPS is kinda dependent on the US-Military, and when Galileo comes on line it won't be....
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I have had magellan and garmin units flake out on their own several times requireing the "built in os" to be reflashed by a PC.
I would trust a linux PC over the handheld or dash mounted GPS anyday.
I would rather have my old no-os gps that simply had numbers and bearing with simple waypoints that I know will not freak out.
after that I'll take a magnetic compass cince I knpow how to navigate instead of relying on technology
Ok, so it's back to what's most important - that it works, or that your family have somebody to sue when it doesn't.
I'll take "works" over "sue" anytime. I don't care if my family have anyone to sue if I don't come back. What I care about is that I DO come back. So I'll take the system that has proven itself over years of using it on my home machine and work servers, over the one that $manufacturer claims works, but specific info is a trade secret.
Also, GPS drive is NOT havigation. it can not tell you how to get from point A to point B, ESPICALLY from the bitmaps it uses for maps.
It's a moving map display and is certianly not Navigation in any way shape or form. I have been down that road way too many times.
the first project mentioned is the ONLY navigation app available for linux, everything else is simply something pretty to look at, or requires a massive amount of attention to use it for navigation.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Just how much money do the Linux users here thing they contribute to the bottom line at Garmin or Magellan? The offerings for Linux (Linspire, etc) ready for the consumer are noticeably lacking. It's going to stay that way for quite a while. When someone says "there is no software for Linux" invariably thousands of geeks on here (I use that term in the fondest manner) will say "oh I just hooked up my transmogrifier to the digital mitzoplexer and then filtered that through Google. Simple!". Well it's not simple folks. Until you realize that the consumers (you know, those folks paying for things) drive demand, things will not change.
A lot of folks here see a good idea, take it, write their own spaghetti code and tailor it to how they want it and then call it good. The folks in Redmond see a good idea, dumb it up to the least common denominator and wham . your Grandmother has one in her Lincoln Continental. See the difference? There's money in developing code that's "good enough" so long as you address it to your market.
I've seen some pretty cool work with in-car PCs and some using Linux. These are packaged with the consumer in mind, even if they are not quire ready yet. That's what's going to catch on. Just because there are open standards does not mean you all need to write your own. That's the surest way to obscurity.
it's probably safe to assume that the good folks over at Garmin would say something along the lines of "Lih-what?".
This may be the case, however, they are very open with the interface/communications protocols for their GPS's - If you go here you can download documents detailing the protocols in a platform neutral format, meaning that anyone with just a little programming experience can easily make programs to interface with their GPS's, on any platform, Linux included. To be quite honest, I can't think of another hardware vendor, that is so open with the specs. Usually, Companies require you to jump through hoops (NDA agreements/ etc) to get hold of this information, or have to resort to reverse engineering, etc. And, if you can't/dont want to program, then there's a few projects already made for you on sourceforge!
To sum up, Don't knock Garmin, They might not produce Linux drivers, but at the same time, they do go out of their way to make it easy for others to do so should they want to.
Difficult and confusing to install? Check!
"Although Roadmap is not the easiest to configure and install..."
Lack of features found in commercial grade applications? Check!
"It would be nice if Roadmap could compute trips and give you step-by-step voice directions, but it doesn't have that feature..."
Broken stuff in the app that confuses users? Check!
"There appears to be support for starting and stopping gpsd from within the program when it loads, but it doesn't seem to work with the either the pre-compiled binaries or the source."
Now just throw in spotty or nonexistant support, and morphing into total Abandonware once the author graduates from college, and we have a real Linux app here!
"Linux as an embedded system outperforms and crashes less often than dedicated software on traditional GPS systems." :)
What studies and what OSs? I would say that compared to Palm OS and WinCE you are probably correct. Compared to QNX or one of the FAA certified realtime control OSs probably not.
Don't get me wrong Linux is a very stable OS and does well in many embedded environments but it is not the most stable OS on the planet. It is a great trade off between stability and flexibility.
Would I trust it for a navigation system. Yes since a navigation system can go through a reboot and not cause a huge problem. Now an autopilot or a control system is a different story.
What we consider reliable for desktop and even servers is not the same as what aerospace, life support system, and nuclear safety system designers consider reliable. If I server goes five years with out a crash that is good. If a plane crashes after five years that is very bad
I would not be surprised if someday a realtime version of Linux did get certified for those types of applications.
I admit that I am suprised that more embeded system do not use BSD. Maybe the do and we don't hear that much about them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The article talks about Linux mapping programs that take their feed from GPS via the standard NEMA protocol, not running Linux ON a GPS. (I didn't see any reference in the article to getting the GPS to talk to the Linux box. I'll guess standard Serial, vs USB)
But your point is the same. You don't trust the external chartplotter as much as you trust the GPS device itself. Now, to be honest, in fog I'd rather have radar than GPS. While the GPS receiver can tell me where I am in relation to my marks and place me on a chart (most of the "downloadable maps" are road maps, not charts) it won't tell me about the coastal tanker on anchorage 42.
Worse, I wouldn't want to drag my laptop out on deck when the fog rolls in - and you can be sure I won't be down at the nav station.
They do seem like decent tools for wardriving and geocaching (if you want to lug a laptop) but not for marine navigation.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...