Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Works fine now. As we say in Finland: Thank you very many :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Reboot and try again - it worked in my device.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Hi there,
Just upgraded to latest version 0.9.2.2. Managed to lauch Columbus with without any problem. Bluetooth syncing to my laptop also without any glitch. Tested using Garmin MobilePc 5.00.70. After field testing for 1hr, all i can say is that the software is very stable. No disconnection. Nice touch with the new waypoint feature. Thanks for all your hard work.

Sincerely,
-scav-

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Not sure what version I'm running, so any chance of an "About" button in a future update?

Thanks

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Latest update works fine again. :) Thank you for including the option to reveal the status bar too. Much, much appreciated.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Yeah, it's on my list of things to do :) Until then, if you open the xterm and type: dpkg -l columbus

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

I want a stable benchmark to promote to extras-testing, so I'll be interested to hear from you all about any potential blockers to that end, basically random crashes, etc.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

I've launched it, had it running for a while. Nothing bad happened. Now doing more stress testing with it running in the background.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Okay, so I left it running for like an hour and a half, got on WiFi, browsed some, left it alone some, opened up FApMan and browsed the entire list of uninstalled apps. Decided to install Wizard Mounter, because, well, why the hell not?

No crashes, nothing horribly unusable. It lagged while the FApMan+Apt-Get+dpkg combination did it's thing, but, well, that always happens when you install something.

Over-all, I'm not seeing anything horrendously show stopping. I'll see how much of a hit battery life takes later - I'm gonna leave it on tomorrow while going from class-to-class, if I remember.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

I really appreciate your efforts in testing this, as it's much better having other people test your code. I tend to test each version myself by doing an hour journey, which allows me to generate screenshots too. But this is really helpful so thanks :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

working great....

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Okay, well, if I don't get any complaints by the end of today, I'm going to promote this current 0.9.2-2 version into testing, and from then on, unless you want to help me test newer releases I'd suggest using extras-testing repositories for future updates until the 1.0 milestone release. :) And once again, thank you all for your great input, it makes it all worth while.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

I always sit in Devel unless I have to otherwise. However, unlike the majority of people who do so, I'm also okay with experimental updates breaking everything. :D So don't let me saying that keep you from pushing updates that might self-destruct the device and such.

Anyway, launched Columbus now that I woke up 20 min or so ago. Will be heading out to class with it on as promised. (Currently it can't get GPS signal for crap... But that's because I'm inside what amounts to being a large concrete box of a building.)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Has anybody got this working with racechrono?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Running Columbus in the background, second class in a row. It has mapped my movements pretty well when it had a lock, which was pretty consistently when I'm outside.

It's kept my GPS lock decently inside this class I'm in now. The GPS system thinks I'm moving when I'm just slgtihtly moving the N900, but that's not a columbus issue - that's a GPS-system issue in general.

Oh, I'm also typing this reply from Google Chrome on my laptom, to which I have connected with VNC Viewer from my N900, connecting over campus wifi. At the same time I have MicroB (4 tabs), X-Term, Columbus, and an sms convo in the background.

Texting, browsing, and everything else hasn't caused and random errors. Columbus keeping GPS lock and running fine.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Okay, just had two crashes in quick succession. It SEEMS to be some mix of actively having a GPS lock, and rapidly being made to change orientation between portrait and landscape.

Not sure. I was going back to dorm from the aforementioned second class, shut everything down except for Columbus and two X-Term windows, went into a Starbucks. I had locked the screen earlier with Columbus in portrait mode (status bar showing). I decided to check on it again. Lifted phone out in landscape mode, pushed the lock switch thingy - nothing happened, not too unusual, I'm never sure if it's software lag or a hardware glitch or me not pushing it all the way in - so I slid open the keyboard. Screen came on as normal, showing Columbus in portrait mode, and then Columbus closed/exited. I relaunched it, it got the lock back almost immediately. So I kept it open, status bar out (I think). For a while in line I kept rotating in one spot while slightly moving my hand around to see how accurately I could get the compass to report direction. Because I wasn't moving more than a foot in any direction, not very, but that's to be expected.

I grabbed a sandwich, ordered my drink, payed, moved into the waiting area. Some of these were done with the same hand that my N900 was in. I basically had it in my hand the entire time, so it got more random movements than normal.

As I set my stuff down and went to put my card and receipt away, I glanced at my screen and saw Columbus had exited again. My memory is not precise enough to be 100% certain if I actually SAW it close, or if it had closed since I last looked (which would've been within a minute at the most), and I don't like falling victim to all those little faulty quirks of human memory (in this case, being certain you remember something based on what you logically know about the situation, when you really don't necessarily remember it if you really pay attention).

So yeah. I tried replicating it when I got home, no success, but I'll admit, I didn't try too hard to walk around flailing my arm or anything like that.

In the four hours I've had columbus and other stuff running, battery got drained. I am pretty sure most of that was the browsing and wifi connectivity, but Columbus did noticeably contribute over time. (But not more than I would expect from something running the GPS system non-stop.)

(Edit - for the part where I did wifi browsing/VNCing, I had lxp's injection capable driver running, not the normal wifi driver. So there's a change that had to do with it. Doubt it, but it's possible.)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

If battery is depleted, programs crashes or phone is switched off by accident then is the log file lost?

Some usability things.

- All graphs have scale lines but what those lines exactly represent? What is on y-axis and what is scale? They look nice but to me they do not exactly tell too much.

- Would it be possible to loop around screen indefinitely?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Not sure. I wasn't logging. Probably should've been.

Actually, it would be great if a future version allowed you to see all of the first screen in portrait mode. (Current version hides two two rather informative graphs - I personally really like the graph that tells you how much signal you have from each satellite. It'd be nice if I could scroll down to see it in portrait mode on that page/window/tab/screen/whatever, since right now it only shows when you're on that screen in landscape.

But anyway, other than the two random crashes/closings, I still think it's stable enough. Might as well push it to extras-testing anyway. You'll get more people testing it that way too. (At least, if the extras-testing-devel system was working right.) Meanwhile, I'm going to another class, so I'll keep testing.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Hi there,
Managed to get around 1.5-2 hrs of usage before total battery depletion. Did some web surfing using wifi & music/video listering simultaneously while running Columbus via bluetooth. So far no problems arose during the abovementioned test run. No disconnection or lag etc... Upon finishing recharging back the batt, restart back Columbus to see if any problem arose because of improper shutdown. All I can say is that Columbus seems to be running ok.
I did notice 1 thing though, my N900 did became a bit hot. If i scale 1 to 10, it would be around 7-8. That hot. While testing, i did OC to 950Mhz with active animated livewallpaper. Wonder it's because of my OC'ing?
Anyway, my report is that Columbus seems to be running rather well on my end. I'll post here for any updates/faults/hanging etc,.

Sincerely,
-Scav-

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Latest version crashes after 3-5 minutes of operation with location displayed. Seems to be ok until it finds the location.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Thank you again for your time in testing, I'll look into the crashing issue, it may be completely unrelated to portrait/landscape but I'll see what I can do. If I can replicate it then I can fix it ;)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

No, the log file should be up to date until the crash occurs.

You can ascertain the statistic graph scaling by looking at the min/max altitude values to the left and speed should be scaled similarly, I know they're not that accurate as measurement views which is something I'm thinking about currently. Those graphs aren't finished, there are a few bugs but I'll work through them :)

It would be possible, though I'm not that inclined to do so :P

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

I've been thinking about, though not got around to, making it so when you click on the lower area in portrait mode "lat/lon/alt/etc" values, it cycles through the graphs then back to those values.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

This is not an issue with gaining a location lock, as no one else seems to be suffering like that. Can you uninstall, then reinstall. Also, seeing as you're saying it crashes after 3-5 minutes that makes me think you've already had a lock for at least 2.5-4.5 minutes as I usually get a lock in under 30 seconds.

If this issue continues, let me know and then we can try and debug it properly (as long as it seems to happen 100% of the time)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

If you're actually viewing the UI, then it will hammer the CPU (and battery) quite intensely due to the animations, which may cause the device to warm up a bit.

Streaming over bluetooth will probably effect your battery life quite substantially, though I've not done any serious power tests yet.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

It *is* happening 100% of the time to me. Also, it is true that it got the lock almost immediately after I started it. It then crashed in about 3-5 minutes. And has done so every single time.

Now, the initial time a ran it, it spent spent several minutes getting the lock, the a few minutes showing the location, then it crashed.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Okay, and you've tried reinstalling it?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Hell, even I can't replicate it currently. Latest round of tests - another class, then went to post office to drop off/pick up mail, and got some snacks - hasn't had any problems. No Columbus randomly exiting.

I recommend making it a settings choice in Options then, if it's not too much of a PITA to code. Gives it to the people who want it, lets you keep it off by default for yourself and everyone else.

Didn't an earlier version have everything get resized slightly differently on that screen, so that the graphs all fit? (Your click on it to cycle idea works just fine too, though.)

@scavenger's results: If you're both overclocking and using bluetooth, that kinda makes sense. I'm not sure, how much the CPU is able to stay sleeping, and at what minimum frequency you put it - so I don't know how much overclocking WITH Columbus running is more or less battery conserving. Columbus runs fine for me without the overclock, so I say don't do it unless you see it fetches you better results battery-wise. Overclocking is only battery efficient when the N900 is able to get it's processor awake time reduced enough to outweigh the extra power draw spent on higher clock speeds. If the task keeps the processor awake non-stop, and doesn't let it drop down to a lower frequency... *Shrug*

Bluetooth radio being on on the otherhand, and actively streaming all that data from/to whatever it's streaming it to/from would make sense on the two-hour battery run-out.

I mean, with mine running using the internal GPS, I lasted over 4 hours, even with one of them spent actively being on the wifi.

Heat-wise, I THINK it's also mainly the bluetooth and the overclocking. Depending on voltage, especially the overclocking. I HAVE occasionally gotten heat from the GPS chip (or what I THINK is the GPS chip), but I normally only get it from battery, or heavy wifi/processor usage.

Both battery depletion and heat makes sense in context... Not sure if there's any way Columbus could be optimized to reduce those things, but it definitely seems to be no less optimized that most programs in that regard.

I think the GPS system does that normally - the first lock (one that's done for the first time recently in the area you're in now, or that's done in a different area than your last lock if your last lock is still cached somewhere), takes a while, because it uses some heuristics to shorten lock times based on the location of the previous lock. If the previous lock is in a totally remote area, or was too long ago to count, it can't use those heuristics.

So unless you moved a few hundred miles between the first lock and consequent quicker locks, that's standard behavior...

I don't know about the crashing though. Perhaps there's something to it though, and it may be correlated to my two-quick-succession crashes... What do you have installed that's likely to be running in the background while Columbus runs? I have the lxp injection-capable drivers loaded, X-Terminal windows open (I was browsing some directories, also editing the ~/.config/menu/submenus/ files that you can edit with ApMeFo to create folders in your menu structure... But with vi and X-Term instead of through ApMeFo because I'm a hardass like that.

I have a bunch of Python-based status menu applets running (Advance Interface Switcher, Advance Power, Advanced Clock Plugin) in the background, but updating and showing because I had status bar visible...

Ummm, I also have ShortcutD, I'm pretty sure I have SSH server up in the background, as well as a the regular slew of system daemons. The only thing out of norm is the power kernel's module that reports battery values, like temperature; I have that loaded at boot by default. But that wasn't being accessed to fetch any values at the time by anything that I can think of... I have the 'swappolube' mods, but I do it the old school way before swappolube - manually - and they're not standard swappolube values.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Yep. Same effect. I have XTerm, Conversations, and Phone running in background. Maybe it is running out of memory somehow? Are you by any chance making any dynamic memory allocations with malloc() or new while your program is running?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

It's quite hard to write a useful program that doesn't. But n that wont be the problem. I use it with much more than that, use top and you'll see how your N900 is resource wise.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Is it possible to use another gpsd to act as client to columbus as server?

This doesn't work:
Yet netcat show data:

I tried this with generic NMEA protocol too with the same results.

Thanks...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

After reading the gpsd documentation, as I've never used it, it states the use of the tcp:// uri schema, so you should probably do: gpsd tcp://n900:9300

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Was the painting on black velvet and did it light up under blacklight? That is the only way to know if it is authentic.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Okay, current version 0.9.2-2 is now in extras-testing, for those that don't want a repeat of the last broken packages, could you please only use -testing repo, for those brave folks that want to help me test new features and code, I appreciate the help with -devel releases :D

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

When can we start download this through the normal app manager?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

You can now, you just need to enable the extras-testing repository. It'll be a few weeks before I'm ready to promote to the main extras repo.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Random crashes still, using latest columbus release once in a while. All data send via bluetooth/usb/wifi was disabled, so probably it doesn't relate to those. happens indoors with poor signal and also outdoors with lots of satellite locks and good signal. using standard kernel.

Wish: compass active/inactive state velocity threshold (for example compass keeps last state when speed is less than a certain amount like 1km/h). otherwise compass just keeps wildly spinning when stationary, being hardly useful

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, that's a planned feature.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

i am trying to run this in QT CREATOR but without luck....i think it's a dependency problem....Shouldn't be enough to have the sdk installed to run this in qt Creator?


i am new to qt....trying to learn some new bits...:))

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Columbus Navigation Toolkit
 

You're probably better off using scratchbox as columbus is split into four different packages.