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Trip Planning Software for Linux?
imadcow1 asks: "I recently went on a trip that involved many destinations. I had to use Yahoo Driving Directions which was not efficient at all. Is there a trip planning program (open source or not) for Linux?"
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NetHack. ;>
Have everyone in the vehicle yell and scream about which direction to go and let the driver take the suggestions as he likes and where they end up is their destination.
Look where Linux is today!
I am also interested in a complete mapping and routing solutions, especially with my upcoming GPS purchase, I really want to have not just a workable solution, but the best on the market.
I am not too bothered about sources, if it works, but price is an issue naturally. If it was open source but too expensive, then I would opt for a cheaper closed source version if it was as good.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
I've been looking around, and there seems to be a lack of local South African PC map programs available that is not part of a GPS purchase and that does not cost an arm and a leg.
Anyone know of a company with good map coverage selling PC map software (with portable data files that could be used under Linux)?
I have a copy of the European Route 2000 from Route 66 and it runs pretty well under Crossover Office. It would probably also run well under generic WINE. I know it isn't Linux native software but the fact that it runs is something and I found it pretty decent when planning my trip to Austria a few years back.
Can't vouch for the current 2004 edition unfortunately but if they haven't made too many changes it should still work.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
The Travelling Salesman Problem remains NP-complete, and I don't think Linux or any other open source software is going to change that. So, in other words, your options may come down to an inefficient solution like you have now, or an efficient solution that takes longer to calculate than the inefficient route takes to travel. :)
"I recently went on a trip that involved many destinations. I had to use Yahoo Driving Directions which was not efficient at all. Is there a trip planning program (open source or not) for Linux?"
Obviously I need to hand in my geek registration card, since I'm don't see why a simple ink-and-paper road atlas won't work.
Lets review the advantages:
As long as you are traveling, why not pick up a road atlas? Just spend 5 minutes in advance to figure out your trip, right the directions down in large type so you can glance at them while driving, and record any landmarks before you need to make a road change (after Large City USA, I need to turn south on I3117). Then keep the most recent route change in your head while driving.
AAA Internet TripTik is very good and works in Firefox. I think you have to be a member of AAA, though. It allows multiple destinations, etc.
AAA website
If so, that's your best bet. It, VPCWin, VS.net, and an old Entertainment Pack Chess game are their best work.
I don't know if the GPS in the GPS edition of S&T 2K5 works on Linux, or if the software works on Crossover, but it's worth a shot.
In this comment I asked people to write to Delorme and request this, and to respond to this Journal Entry telling me they had done so. In the past I have contacted Delorme about this, and they keep telling me "Oh, we've never had any requests for this" - demonstrably false after my first request, so I wanted to have the evidence to point to in order to bring more pressure to bear upon Delorme.
And as I commented in this journal entry the result was a big, fat zero. There were no replies to my journal entry, and as far as I can tell, no replies to Delorme.
Now, what does this tell us? When a story like that hits the front page of Slashdot, and fails to engender enough support to even generate one response, then the only thing one can conclude is that there is not enough demand for this product to make it worth anybody's time to do. Hell, I do software design for a living - and were I working for Delorme I would not recommend spending any effort to do a port precisely for this reason. The opportunity cost is too high - even if the cost of a port is only a few man-weeks, the money you can make spending those man-weeks on improving the Windows product is FAR greater than the money you would make on the Linux port.
Furthermore, I would assert that a program like this is very difficult to do in a Free Software environment, due to the dependance upon a large, detailed, and accurate database. One lone hacker can create a vector map display widget, one lone hacker can create a route planning routine, but one lone hacker cannot create a detailed database of roads (including road type, speed limit, any one-way restrictions, etc.) attractions, exit services, hotels, etc. The only way I could see to do this would be to allow submissions by the public to a database, with some sort of reputation system and approval system (think Wikipedia. Or more realistically, think Slashdot. Do you really want your trip planning software trying to route to on 69 Goatse Rd. to the Portman Museum of Grits in Frist Prost, AR?)
I shall say it again: IF this is something that matters to you, write a polite letter to:
sales@delorme.com
or better still, write (on paper, with proper spelling) to
The head of Delorme's name is David Delorme, perhaps you could address your letters to "Sales Manager" and CC David Delorme.
And again, if you do so, please drop me a line as a response to this post.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The debian version is 0.16, but the sourceforge version is 0.11, and the version on the project's homepage is 0.6. The last debian version was uploaded in June of this year. The others were released in 2001, so I guess the debian version is the only one still being actively developed (or released anyway).
I don't have a lot of experience with this package. I've only tried it a couple times, but so far so good.
Frogs are primitive animals - so the occasional extra toe is not that unusual. But this is very unusual.
for all you lazy cats that keep flooding the front page with nonesense "WHERE DO I FIND X PIECE OF SOFTWARE?!?" it's called
google.com, www.freshmeat.net, and sourceforge.net. quit being lazy and find it yourself damnit~!
in the bonds, ppka
This "quest" for a Linux mapping solution reminded me of my own; I've recently been thinking about (rather procrastinating) over buying a Garmin IQUE 3600. In my reading and comp'ing of pdas with GPS/Mapping software, I looked at the Linux-OS-based Sharp Zaurus which gets a lot of (well earned) attention here.
i l.jsp?siteId=423.............
I was looking for more than the Zaurus was offering, but here's what I found and bookmarked. I'm sure others here using the Zaurus will be able to fill in the blanks and share other gps mapping OSS projects out there, if they exist, which I wasn't able to find, other than three below. Zaurus Users Group might have some info as well. Bill Kendrick is also a good resource about these.
SOFTWARE:
GPSGaugeLite
MFG: Serialio
http://www.serialio.com/products/GPSGaugeLite.htm
SOFTWARE:
qpeGPS
http://qpegps.sourceforge.net/
Screenshots | Tested GPS Units
SOFTWARE:
zGPS
http://www.handango.com/sharp/PlatformProductDeta
http://tinyurl.com/6lau7
HARDWARE:
Model Name: CF Card -GPS Navigation Receiver
Manufacturer: AmbiCom
http://myzaurus.com/acc_Comm10.asp
HARDWARE:
Serial GPS Receiver
Model Name:GPS-U2-Z9
Manufacturer:Serialio.com
http://myzaurus.com/acc_Serial10.asp
Scratch that itch, hacker boy.
the pocket pda (I use a palm-os device with gps built in) is really the best trip 'planner'. since you have a constant stream of datapoints (ie, the gps receiver). its great to have a static map, but its far better to be able to drive offcourse, have it go 'bing-bong, offcourse! re-routing...'. really, its a different driving experience.
in terms of writing apps, the garmin unit I have uses palm-os and I believe there's a gps api that you can write to to get various bits of info. there are 3rd party gps apps for this series of pda - so it really is a platform and not just a closed end device).
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Mod parent up, please!
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
What you need is Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm. :)
You give paths weights such as distance over average speed, given speed limit and traffic patterns... so it might be 4 km divided by 45 km h^-1 on a particular road, giving roughly 0.1 h as a weight, where units are kilometres, kilometres per hour and hours respectively.
Dijkstra's SPA works out the path with the least total weight. I worked on something like this as a prototype for a school intranet, using indexed PNGs and a server side app to change colours of paths and rooms (each room and path had a colour palette entry... set to white by default) depending on the selection by the user.
It's a pretty simple algorithm, I don't have a copy here nor would I want to be slashdotted if I had a working implementation on my server, so do a google
After I bought my GPS mouse receiver I searched a lot about mapping software which I could use for trip-planning ,navigation etc under GNU/Linux. ,but the maps do not have Street names.
But there are none available which will run natively in GNU/Linux.
You will find a lot of software which can read the output from the GPS and show your position.There are open-source projects which can even show your location on the maps
So the thing which is missing is lack of a mapping software that is a software which has maps of whole of North America with Street Addresses/POI etc.
Also the software needs to have features like voice recognition,auto-routing etc.
I wish Delorme or someone would port their software to GNU/Linux.
...AAA, even though it's not a local host app as you're seeking.
Yes, you DO have to be a member of AAA.
Its benefit is NOT merely that it allows multiple intermediate waypoints:
it has the smoothest, most flexible, useful, time-saving UI I've seen for such apps, MUCH better than mapquest, mapblast, etc.
Borrow someone's ID and try it, especially the mouse-over and "modify trip" functions.
If you like it, maybe you can find a PC-based version of whatever they use.
It is unlikely that AAA would make the map software available for use on a local computer, as they had done something similar and stopped.
Delorme used to have a program called AAA MapNGo, which was Delorme's map data of streets combined with AAA's attractions database. When the contract with AAA came up for renewal, AAA refused.
Look at it from AAA's perspective - one of the draws to being a AAA member is the trip planning function of the AAA website. If you can buy a program that does this, you can now plan your own trips forever. Yes, eventually the data on your copy of the program will be out of date, but realisticly this does not happen for several years. Thus, selling such a program costs them memberships.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Sorry, the Web is the platform now.
Yahoo, MapQuest, MapBlast, etc.
Scoble mentioned one, mappoint I think.
Google for scoble map.
Phillip
http://www.infone.com/
> I had to use Yahoo Driving Directions which was not efficient at all.
Heh. I don't know if you guys have ever been to places like India, where driving directions are uncommon on highways, let alone on the Internet.
Really, you Westerners won't know how much comforts you have unless you visit the less fortunate parts of the world.
--
Religion is the politics of spirituality.
I've just apt-gotten (well, actually synapticlized) this package, now to see if it works as hoped :)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Something I've wondered - how big is the software devel group there? And are the bulk of the apps writting in VC++ or VB?
And something to consider - perhaps as others have said, making the program itself FOSS but making the dataset a licensed item (with a severely limited dataset made available as FOSS) might work - the old "give away the razor, sell the blades" model might work.
Hell, even identifying why the programs don't work with Wine and feeding that back to Winedev would be enough - I used to be able to run MNG6 under Wine, but with the latest versions all I get is the dreaded "Cannot create empty document" messages.
I'd buy the latest copies of Street Atlas to replace my old SA5/AAA6, but only if I had a reasonable chance of them running under Wine.
www.eFax.com are spammers
There's a project called roadmap that uses the US Census Bureau TIGER vector maps. It doesn't yet have trip planning capability, though.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Read the post title as Trepanning Software for Linux. Sounds more appropriate for the Mac.
I was checking out my Knoppix distro, and whadya you know, an app call "gpsdrive" is packaged with it and can be run on a pda. I'm thinking that I should give a used Zaurus a chance before pluncking down $500 for a Garmin IQUE 3600 and the car kit. /. article discussing GPS with PDAs and this post mentioning gpsdrive.
GPSdrive has a project page on freshmeat, and I also came across this earlier