wine users - Mar 2006 - Mappery breakthrough : Garmin topo, vista, rino, under linux & CXO

As most of you know, I've been trying to make GPSs and topo 
maps usable under Fedora Core 4 linux, using CrossoverOfficePro (CXO) 
5.0.1.

 	I've belabored nine or ten specialized lists for six or eight 
weeks, parcelling out pieces of the problem wherever I hoped they 
might arouse interest and knowledge. I've gotten invaluable help and 
encouragement from all of them, on the lists and under them, and from 
a few personal gurux as well. For all of it, my heartfelt thanks!

 	I kept hitting dead ends, and finally started working with a 
suggestion to try USB ports. Those seemed almost to work.

 	Late Friday an electronic friend opined that I'd never manage 
with symbolic links from serial ports (which both the software and the 
special GPS cables are designed for, and which have always worked 
under W98 and XP, but never under linux). I would have to get hold of 
some USB drivers somewhere, somehow; but I had no idea where nor how 
to look.

 	Saturday (yesterday), I stumbled onto a prominent link to 
download Garmin drivers from. (All my GPSs and one of my four main 
suites of software are from Garmin. A no-brainer at last!)

 	I grabbed them, installed them with CXO, opened the Garmin 
software, plugged a GPS into a USB port, turned it on, let it boot, 
and told the software to go git 'em.

 	RESULT : We have breakthrough, not victory yet. It got 'em, 
but only in part. It only got tracks and maps from a rino 120, and 
waypoints from an etrex vista; but it had said, both times, that 
either the software or the GPS needed upgrading. They certainly do -- 
none has had it in years; the software is release 3.0 from 1999, and 
release 5.0 is out.

 	I take this as proof of concept, and more: I can get the 
upgrades, and dollars to doughnuts it will all just work, with the 
present setup, from there. Ditto, more likely than not, for at least 
some of the software suites from other vendors who have USB drivers.

 	So we hardened linux users can do our things in the woods 
(and, most likely, on the roads and streets) without needing Windows 
machines; the vendors of both hard- and software will have a larger 
market, especially as the Baby Boomers retire, and some of them also 
get rid of Windows; and so will authors and publishers of both linux 
books and GPS/mapware books.

 	Methinks toasts are indicated all around.

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Hunter by Birth, Not Quite Clueless
Power User by God's Grace, Linux's, and the Net's

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:48:34 -0500, Beartooth wrote:

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:48:34 -0500, I Beartooth wrote:
[....]
>  	RESULT : We have breakthrough, not victory yet. It got 'em, 
> but only in part. It only got tracks and maps from a rino 120, and 
> waypoints from an etrex vista; [....]
Well, I'm already seeing, the very next day, that I was righter than I
knew to include the caveat. For instance, the connections that worked
yesterday, *some*times* work today.

Some of the problems may be my fault: accustomed as I am to running these
software suites, when at all, on my newest fastest machine under XP, I
find myself thinking things have failed -- and acting on the thought --
when I should really allow more time. 

What's worse, since I'm trying to do all the same things on four
machines
with at least three very different speeds (two are 1998 pentium 2s from
different sources and with different hard drives), it's going to take me
longer than it ought to acclimate to the delays. (I plan to use one for
real backup, and the other two, which don't drive the monitor properly,
essentially as warehouse storage, chiefly for the data from my GPSs.)

I'm not sure what harm I do, or even how much, when I jump a gun; I
suppose it varies. Anyway, whether for that reason or another, I'm getting
various odd crashes, and sometimes an insistence that a suite be
reinstalled -- one more reason, methinks, for lots of redundancy.

I did go ahead this morning, when something didn't want to re-connect to
the first machine, and kludge my waypoints into the CXO install (and plan
to do it in all machines): I gritted my teeth, rebooted to XP, and
transferred all my waypoints into the etrex vista, then booted back to
linux, and transferred them to it. When I get that done on all four, I'll
have much less to lose by wiping XP, or so I hope.

Also, the various update functions, for both the software and the
hardware, have yet to work; dunno if that's just because I'm running 3.0
when, as I now learn, 6.x is out -- or for some other reason. 

Also, I'm not sure how to check whether things in different bottles are
finding one another -- when they should (as with the software updates I
downloaded and installed) -- or at least once when they shouldn't.

Example of the latter: on one machine (the best, iirc) I installed
Garmin's so-called MetroGuide, a street program which is another part of
MapSource. If you do that on a M$ machine, clicking the MapSource icon
thereafter simply adds MetroGuide to the choices you had before. 

But under CXO, MetroGuide usurped the whole icon, on which it became the
only choice. In order to invoke Topo, I have to tunnel interminably
through a long sequence of opaque Windows menus, hoping eventually to hit
the .exe; and what's worse, yes, I really *have* to. CXO won't let me
paste the path to it into the window that invokes it. <gnash, grind>

Stay tuned.

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Hunter by Birth, 
Not Quite Clueless Fedora Power User
by God's Grace, Linux's and the Net's

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:48:34 -0500, Beartooth wrote:

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:48:34 -0500, I Beartooth wrote:
>  	RESULT : We have breakthrough, not victory yet. It got 'em, 
> but only in part. It only got tracks and maps from a rino 120, and 
> waypoints from an etrex vista; [....]
Well, I'm already seeing, the very next day, that I was righter than I
knew to include the caveat. For instance, the connections that worked
yesterday, *some*times* work today.

Some of the problems may be my fault: accustomed as I am to running these
software suites, when at all, on my newest fastest machine under XP, I
find myself thinking things have failed -- and acting on the thought --
when I should really allow more time. 

What's worse, since I'm trying to do all the same things on four
machines
with at least three very different speeds (two are 1998 pentium 2s from
different sources and with different hard drives), it's going to take me
longer than it ought to acclimate to the delays. (I plan to use one for
real backup, and the other two, which don't drive the monitor properly,
essentially as warehouse storage, chiefly for the data from my GPSs.)

I'm not sure what harm I do, or even how much, when I jump a gun; I
suppose it varies. Anyway, whether for that reason or another, I'm getting
various odd crashes, and sometimes an insistence that a suite be
reinstalled -- one more reason, methinks, for lots of redundancy.

I did go ahead this morning, when something didn't want to re-connect to
the first machine, and kludge my waypoints into the CXO install (and plan
to do it in all machines): I gritted my teeth, rebooted to XP, and
transferred all my waypoints into the etrex vista, then booted back to
linux, and transferred them to it. When I get that done on all four, I'll
have much less to lose by wiping XP, or so I hope.

Also, the various update functions, for both the software and the
hardware, have yet to work; dunno if that's just because I'm running 3.0
when, as I now learn, 6.x is out -- or for some other reason. 

Also, I'm not sure how to check whether things in different bottles are
finding one another -- when they should (as with the software updates I
downloaded and installed) -- or at least once when they shouldn't.

Example of the latter: on one machine (the best, iirc) I installed
Garmin's so-called MetroGuide, a street program which is another part of
MapSource. If you do that on a M$ machine, clicking the MapSource icon
thereafter simply adds MetroGuide to the choices you had before. 

But under CXO, MetroGuide usurped the whole icon, on which it became the
only choice. In order to invoke Topo, I have to tunnel interminably
through a long sequence of opaque Windows menus, hoping eventually to hit
the .exe; and what's worse, yes, I really *have* to. CXO won't let me
paste the path to it into the window that invokes it. <gnash, grind>

Stay tuned.
-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Hunter by Birth, 
Not Quite Clueless Fedora Power User
by God's Grace, Linux's and the Net's

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:48:34 -0500, Beartooth wrote:

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:48:34 -0500, I Beartooth wrote:
[....]
>  	RESULT : We have breakthrough, not victory yet. It got 'em, 
> but only in part. It only got tracks and maps from a rino 120, and 
> waypoints from an etrex vista; [....]
Well, I'm already seeing, the very next day, that I was righter than I
knew to include the caveat. For instance, the connections that worked
yesterday, *some*times* work today.

Some of the problems may be my fault: accustomed as I am to running these
software suites, when at all, on my newest fastest machine under XP, I
find myself thinking things have failed -- and acting on the thought --
when I should really allow more time. 

What's worse, since I'm trying to do all the same things on four
machines
with at least three very different speeds (two are 1998 pentium 2s from
different sources and with different hard drives), it's going to take me
longer than it ought to acclimate to the delays. (I plan to use one for
real backup, and the other two, which don't drive the monitor properly,
essentially as warehouse storage, chiefly for the data from my GPSs.)

I'm not sure what harm I do, or even how much, when I jump a gun; I
suppose it varies. Anyway, whether for that reason or another, I'm getting
various odd crashes, and sometimes an insistence that a suite be
reinstalled -- one more reason, methinks, for lots of redundancy.

I did go ahead this morning, when something didn't want to re-connect to
the first machine, and kludge my waypoints into the CXO install (and plan
to do it in all machines): I gritted my teeth, rebooted to XP, and
transferred all my waypoints into the etrex vista, then booted back to
linux, and transferred them to it. When I get that done on all four, I'll
have much less to lose by wiping XP, or so I hope.

Also, the various update functions, for both the software and the
hardware, have yet to work; dunno if that's just because I'm running 3.0
when, as I now learn, 6.x is out -- or for some other reason. 

Also, I'm not sure how to check whether things in different bottles are
finding one another -- when they should (as with the software updates I
downloaded and installed) -- or at least once when they shouldn't.

Example of the latter: on one machine (the best, iirc) I installed
Garmin's so-called MetroGuide, a street program which is another part of
MapSource. If you do that on a M$ machine, clicking the MapSource icon
thereafter simply adds MetroGuide to the choices you had before. 

But under CXO, MetroGuide usurped the whole icon, on which it became the
only choice. In order to invoke Topo, I have to tunnel interminably
through a long sequence of opaque Windows menus, hoping eventually to hit
the .exe; and what's worse, yes, I really *have* to. CXO won't let me
paste the path to it into the window that invokes it. <gnash, grind>

Stay tuned.

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Hunter by Birth, 
Not Quite Clueless Fedora Power User
by God's Grace, Linux's and the Net's