hi,

i'm about to take off on a long road trip through the us and am
planning the technological elements. I'm looking for advice on
purchasing a gps unit. If possible, i'd love to get something that
ran Free software, or was at least intercompatible with my debian &
ubuntu based machines. we will probably have a laptop hooked up for
watching video/playing music, and could either run a gps card off of
that laptop or have a standalone unit, whichever seems to be a better
idea. the set up has to be usable not just by me but by my nongeek
family members. has anyone done this/have a suggestion?

thanks as always,

matt


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Matt Price wrote:
> hi,
>
> i'm about to take off on a long road trip through the us and am
> planning the technological elements. I'm looking for advice on
> purchasing a gps unit. If possible, i'd love to get something that
> ran Free software, or was at least intercompatible with my debian &
> ubuntu based machines. we will probably have a laptop hooked up for
> watching video/playing music, and could either run a gps card off of
> that laptop or have a standalone unit, whichever seems to be a better
> idea. the set up has to be usable not just by me but by my nongeek
> family members. has anyone done this/have a suggestion?
>
> thanks as always,
>
> matt
>
>
I have a Garmin Nuvi 660 and absolutely love it.


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Matt Price wrote:
> i'm about to take off on a long road trip through the us and am
> planning the technological elements. I'm looking for advice on
> purchasing a gps unit. If possible, i'd love to get something that
> ran Free software, or was at least intercompatible with my debian &
> ubuntu based machines. we will probably have a laptop hooked up for
> watching video/playing music, and could either run a gps card off of
> that laptop or have a standalone unit, whichever seems to be a better
> idea. the set up has to be usable not just by me but by my nongeek
> family members. has anyone done this/have a suggestion?
there's apparently some pretty good, free, mapping software for the
Nokia N770 (now superseded by the N800) - these are handheld devices
that run a Debian-derived o/s, and talk both wifi and bluetooth - so you
need a bluetooth phone and a bluetooth gps unit to go with it

Miles


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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007 14:52:56 -0400
"Matt Price" <moptop99@gmail.com> wrote:

> has anyone done this/have a suggestion?


Bluetooth GPS + gpsdrive[0].

Most GPSes that have some kind of serial
interface (Bluetooth, RS232, PCMCIA, or USB) emit NMEA data, which is
standard. Any Linux GPS tool can parse it.

- --
Andrew J. Barr
X-Mailer: Claws Mail 2.9.2 (GTK+ 2.10.12; powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu)

"The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
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Matt Price(moptop99@gmail.com) is reported to have said:
> hi,
>
> i'm about to take off on a long road trip through the us and am
> planning the technological elements. I'm looking for advice on
> purchasing a gps unit. If possible, i'd love to get something that
> ran Free software, or was at least intercompatible with my debian &
> ubuntu based machines. we will probably have a laptop hooked up for
> watching video/playing music, and could either run a gps card off of
> that laptop or have a standalone unit, whichever seems to be a better
> idea. the set up has to be usable not just by me but by my nongeek
> family members. has anyone done this/have a suggestion?
>
Matt

I just finished testing a new GPS unit I just received so your timing
is right on.

How about a USB based GPS that mounts on the roof of the car (with
its own magnet), requires no batteries, is waterproof, has a 20
channel receiver, is WAAS enabled, has a USB to Serial adapter
built in, and uses a driver built into the 2.6.18 kernel. In
addition to that is runs with Debian software. ie gpsd, kismet,
gpsdrive, and roadnav. In addition it works with Delorme Topo and
Streetmap 2008.

I ran a comparison of it with my Magellan SportTrak Map. Inside
the house the Magellan can't get a lock but this (GlobalSat BU-353)
got a lock on 4 Sat's when in the same position. Hung in a window
the BU-353 got 7-8 Sat's to 4-5 for the Magellan. Very impressive
and was less then 1/4 the price of the Magellan.

After a lot of research I got it on Amazon. Lowest price &
Shipping. Ordered on line on Monday night and arrived today by USPS.
It was tested on a Thinkpad T40 running Debian testing and a desktop
with Windbloz XP.

<http://www.buygpsnow.com>

:-) HTH, YMMV, HAND :-)

Wayne

--
Linux s those who themselves
__________________________________________________ _____


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Matt Price wrote in Article
<f22f52180706011152v330f208fg48f8323e5da80934@mail .gmail.com> posted to
gmane.linux.debian.user:

> i'm about to take off on a long road trip through the us and am
> planning the technological elements. I'm looking for advice on
> purchasing a gps unit. If possible, i'd love to get something that
> ran Free software, or was at least intercompatible with my debian &
> ubuntu based machines. we will probably have a laptop hooked up for
> watching video/playing music, and could either run a gps card off of
> that laptop or have a standalone unit, whichever seems to be a better
> idea. the set up has to be usable not just by me but by my nongeek
> family members. has anyone done this/have a suggestion?

AFAICT, almost all, if not all, USB-based GPS devices use the industry
standard NMEA spec. This means your GPS will actually appear as a serial
port. Treat it like a read-only serial modem and you'll be off to a good
start. 4800 bps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.

--
Paul Johnson
Email and IM (XMPP & Google Talk): baloo@ursine.ca



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