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
