GPSDrive Optimized
 

I've been playing around with optimizing GPSDrive for my own purposes. I've rebuilt gpsdrive, gpsd, and libpcre3 in scratchbox, with some optimization flags, plus I configured out some optional parts that I didn't need. The results are not bad.

There's more to come, as I start to gut gpsdrive of all of the excess features that I don't want/need (like friendsd2 support) and add features that I do want, which are listed in the above page.

Suggestions are certainly welcome!

Is there some kind of offline mode where I could pre-download maps and use it for normal navigation as I don't have a GPS unit? I grabbed some maps after (somehow) managing to get the position somewhere in Michigan (close enough to Toronto for testing), grabbed some maps off of excite, but found navigation near impossible. Apparently the software didn't like me because I slowly started moving into the middle of Lake Huron where it subsequently stopped, in an attempt to drown me I believe.

There's a "Pos Mode" in the Menu, but it sucks, at least I found it unusable, especially in conjunction with a real GPS. One of the changes I plan on doing (listed on my page) is to modify the directional pad to allow simple panning of the map, which would prove very useful in an Offline mode - you could use it as a simple map reader. Right now, however, using GPSDrive as a map reader is darn near impossible on the Nokia 770.

>Gnuite
First, I have to say "bravo" for the port. I love the automatic retrievial of maps. I think I'll be a very very very useful app for the 770!
Thank you very much again!

Before discussing about extensions that could improve the usability of gpsdrive (via plugins written in python for example) let me give youmy impressions.
First there are a few wrong displays: elements like EPE near the satellite map are unreadable, some text are overidden by another text, parameter panels have difficulties to display all the information clearly.
Second, gpsdrive for the 770 seems to have some difficulties to take into account the acquisition status. I kept an eye over the acquisition flag ('A' or 'V') while running gpsdrive and this one finally accept the data far after these one were considered ok. During these comparisons the number of satellite seen were over 7.
When, at end, gpsdrive accepts to start the track it often stops acquiring a few minutes after.

Third, a few suggestions:
a plugin system for calculations and/or placing elements onto the maps,
an offline system,
a total course calculus.

db

Gourmet, I hope I didn't give the impression that I actually ported the application to Maemo. I merely optimized the existing port that is posted at http://www.elisanet.fi/tapio.tolvanen/nokia770.html, from which I based my port. I'm not saying this to disown the faults that you listed (I agree with most of them), but to make it perfectly clear that I'm not trying to take credit for the port. Credit is due to the author of the page above.

The modifications that I am planning to make are for my own purposes only. Hopefully, some of the additions can be pushed back to the gpsdrive community, but I [em]am[/em] planning and removing much of the existing functionality, and I certainly won't be pushing that back.

My goal is merely a lighter-weight, more efficient gpsdrive with added functionality that I need in order to make gpsdrive usable for me.

gnuite: I hope either Tapio Tolvanen takes your optimizations and incorporates them in the next rev. of gpsdrive or (hint hint) you are able to work with him and deliver the Hildon optimized version with proper widgets :D

Glad to see you're developing this - looks excellent. I can't wait to post a video of this all in action when it's optimized.

Nope, but every kind of contribution is valuable! That's why I insisted on it. Of course much more credits have to be addressed to the gpsdrive community and to Tapio but here we are speaking about n770.
So ...

db

You are talking about c++ in your pages, 3.4 compiler can be used even for c++ if you link stdc++ statically, see thread about scummvm. The only catch seems to be when loading c++ code dynamically (i.e. some plugins in .so files). This may cause problems when the plugin is linked dynamically to libstdc++. Also for c++ '-fno-exceptions -fno-rtti' kills some bloat that is rarely/never used in most c++ code.

For linking stdc++ I use shell wrapper over original g++ that adds -Lpath to path where is only the static library. See some tips here http://www.trilithium.com/johan/2005/06/static-libstdc/

EDIT: sorry not scummvm but the optimizing .deb flags thread

There seems to be a new version of Bluetooth Connectivity Plugin http://770.fs-security.com/maemo-bt-plugin/ that makes the use of GpsDrive easier.

- kepler

gnuite, do you have an update on GPSdrive?