[clug] uppdate software for navig8r M35 GPS navigation system

[jhock]

Hi All,

I have recently purchased a navig8r M35 navigation system. The
instruction manual suggests using "active sync" on M$ Windows XP and
2000. I am using EEEBUNTU 8.10 on my EEEPC 10.

It would appear that OpenSync is the equivalent software to communicate
from my EEEPC to the M35 to update sofware and download updated maps,
points of interest etc.

Has anyone had experience communicating from LINUX to a M35? If so am I
on the right track? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.


John

[Francis James Whittle]

Note that I haven't done anything with an M35 ever.

ActiveSync is one of those heavily closed technologies ... "third party"
vendor need to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and that calibre.
There's an opensource project SynCE ( http://www.synce.org ) that
supposed to communicate with such devices (via multisync and the like),
but as yet I've never been able to get it to work properly....

Post by jhock
Hi All,
I have recently purchased a navig8r M35 navigation system. The
instruction manual suggests using "active sync" on M$ Windows XP and
2000. I am using EEEBUNTU 8.10 on my EEEPC 10.
It would appear that OpenSync is the equivalent software to communicate
from my EEEPC to the M35 to update sofware and download updated maps,
points of interest etc.
Has anyone had experience communicating from LINUX to a M35? If so am I
on the right track? Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks.
John

[Stephen Gibson]

Opps, forgot to use group reply for an earlier email, which would
have gone directly to John.

The update software for the navig8r now no longer uses activesync,
it was too slow and unreliable. The current software, that upgrades
via an SDHC card reader, only runs under windows (I've tried Darwine).

The navig8r team have seen the error in their ways and, according to their
web forum, are developing a web based upgrade method.

Since, this is a Linux list, I would like to note that the navig8r M35
has an ARM processor (which is used to run windows CE).
Anyone know if it would be possible to install ARM Ubuntu on this mobile device?
It only has a USB interface to the outside world and it is not obvious
to me how to interrupt the windoze boot process ...

Steve.

Post by Francis James Whittle
Note that I haven't done anything with an M35 ever.
ActiveSync is one of those heavily closed technologies ... "third party"
vendor need to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and that calibre.
There's an opensource project SynCE ( http://www.synce.org ) that
supposed to communicate with such devices (via multisync and the like),
but as yet I've never been able to get it to work properly....

Post by jhock
Hi All,
I have recently purchased a navig8r M35 navigation system. The
instruction manual suggests using "active sync" on M$ Windows XP and
2000. I am using EEEBUNTU 8.10 on my EEEPC 10.
It would appear that OpenSync is the equivalent software to communicate
from my EEEPC to the M35 to update sofware and download updated maps,
points of interest etc.
Has anyone had experience communicating from LINUX to a M35? If so am I
on the right track? Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks.
John

[David Tulloh]

Post by Stephen Gibson
...
Since, this is a Linux list, I would like to note that the navig8r M35
has an ARM processor (which is used to run windows CE).
Anyone know if it would be possible to install ARM Ubuntu on this mobile device?
It only has a USB interface to the outside world and it is not obvious
to me how to interrupt the windoze boot process ...

I'm sure it's possible. You can probably boot it off the SD card, maybe
with a magic boot from me file.


The more important question is why would you want to?

A low cost device like this almost certainly has a GPS radio chip in it
and does the actual processing in the ARM chip. I'm not aware of any
open source GPS processors at that level, though there may be one built
into the Android system.

Even if you could drop in a GPS implementation the value in the device
comes from the map software. The best open source mapping software I've
seen just plots points on a map file. You might find something in the
Android project again but I suspect that any phone based system would be
inferior to what you have right now.


If you want to have a generic linux system in your car it's probably far
easier to adapt an existing Linux system to the car. Chopping the case
off something like a Chumby would be fairly simple.


David

[David Cottrill]

Ipaqs can run Linux (2.4 kernel) and work reasonably well. At least mine
does.The hitch is the bootloader. There are a few ways to get around it but
the best idea (to me) is to:
a) take a previous suggestion and give up
b) visit http://familiar.handhelds.org/ and
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-ipaq.html to get all the
information you'll ever need. Includes at least token GPS drivers and
software.

Note that you are pretty much screwed if it doesn't all go exactly to plan.
My plaything was bought for $40 as an all in one car computer. The concept
is still good, but I never did get around to actually making the damn thing
work the way I dreamed.
David

Post by David Tulloh

Post by Stephen Gibson
...
Since, this is a Linux list, I would like to note that the navig8r M35
has an ARM processor (which is used to run windows CE).
Anyone know if it would be possible to install ARM Ubuntu on this mobile device?
It only has a USB interface to the outside world and it is not obvious
to me how to interrupt the windoze boot process ...

I'm sure it's possible. You can probably boot it off the SD card, maybe
with a magic boot from me file.
The more important question is why would you want to?
A low cost device like this almost certainly has a GPS radio chip in it and
does the actual processing in the ARM chip. I'm not aware of any open
source GPS processors at that level, though there may be one built into the
Android system.
Even if you could drop in a GPS implementation the value in the device
comes from the map software. The best open source mapping software I've
seen just plots points on a map file. You might find something in the
Android project again but I suspect that any phone based system would be
inferior to what you have right now.
If you want to have a generic linux system in your car it's probably far
easier to adapt an existing Linux system to the car. Chopping the case off
something like a Chumby would be fairly simple.
David
--
linux mailing list
https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux

[Sam Couter]

Post by David Tulloh
The more important question is why would you want to?

The same reasons I run Linux on my "normal" computers.

I'm kinda cheating though, my ARM came with Linux preinstalled (Nokia
n810).

Post by David Tulloh
Even if you could drop in a GPS implementation the value in the device
comes from the map software. The best open source mapping software I've
seen just plots points on a map file.

Navit is my favourite.

http://www.navit-project.org/

It uses open map data too.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

It can use other sources if you want, such as unencrypted Garmin maps.
--
Sam Couter | mailto:***@couter.id.au
OpenPGP fingerprint: A46B 9BB5 3148 7BEA 1F05 5BD5 8530 03AE DE89 C75C
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[Jim Croft]

I could not get SynCE to work with a Dell PDA connected to Ubuntu
either and ultimately opted for the tried at true aphorism, "If at
first you don't succeed, life is short, give up and do something
else..."

Decided also life was too short to waste on a brain dead PDA... and
trashed the latter...

jim

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Francis James Whittle

Post by Francis James Whittle
Note that I haven't done anything with an M35 ever.
ActiveSync is one of those heavily closed technologies ... "third party"
vendor need to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and that calibre.
There's an opensource project SynCE ( http://www.synce.org ) that
supposed to communicate with such devices (via multisync and the like),
but as yet I've never been able to get it to work properly....