Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Maemo Mapper v2.6 has been released. It includes several major changes, including one that should greatly improve reliability.

First and foremost, the default file format of backing map databases has been changed from GDBM to SQLite3, providing the following key advantages:

1. Reliability - SQLite is much more reliable than GDBM, which is important because corrupted databases were an all-too-common occurrence.
2. Scalability - SQLite files are not limited to 2GB like GDBM files are. Now you can fill your SDHC cards to the brim with a single map database file.
3. Platform-agnostic format - Because SQLite files are not endian-specific, you should be able to create an SQLite file on one platform and use it in Maemo Mapper. This means that--with a separate application--you can download maps on your PC and move them onto your SD card for use with Maemo Mapper.

GDBM is still a supported map storage mechanism. Particularly, your existing map databases will still work in Maemo Mapper v2.6 without change. There is no utility to convert GDBM map repositories to SQLite3 map repositories.


Another big new feature in Maemo Mapper v2.6 is support for Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS). Rob Williams (aka camel) was kind enough to submit a lot of code to Maemo Mapper to add APRS support. I don't have the knowledge or equipment necessary to test it, though, so let me know if it works out for you. :)

There are also some improvements to the layering functionality that should increase performance both with and without layers. This new version is recommended for all users, regardless of whether or not you will be using SQLite maps or APRS.

Updated packages are available now in the Files section of Maemo Mapper's Garage site. They'll be available for automatic updates via the Extras Repository as soon as the autobuilder is done with them.

Let me know if you have any problems with the release. Thanks!

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

I successfully downloaded the update via the Application Manager; thank you!

The APRS functionality looks very interesting but I could not get it working. Can you or Rob Williams please provide a basic HOWTO?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Great!

BTW, the N8x0/770 ARM CPUs are little endian just as your x86 PC, so that's not really an issue with gdbm either (unless you have some big endian hardware around your house that you're using for stuff like this).

BTW2, anyone up to writing a utility to convert gdbm maps to sqlite? Even though the old format is supported I prefer to keep my maps in a single format and I have so many from my travels.. :)

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

John aka Gnuite,

Have you given any thought to making maps and layers orthogonal?

Currently Maemo Mapper requires that the different layers (eg., Traffic/Weather) be configured separately for each map provider even though the layers all share the same cache and operate using the same API. So I was wondering whether it would be possible to specify the Layers completely separately from the Maps and then dynamically choose which map provider to us separately from the layers. That way we would only have to configure the layers once instead of once per map provider.

Thanks

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Have you ever considered enabling hardware floating point unit for Maemo Mapper?
I haven't checked how much faster it would be, but at least it wouldn't be any slower.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Does this mean that if I want to use the new database, I need to redownload my maps?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Is it possible to use gmapmaker to create maps to feed the new MM sqlite database ?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Will the new database files simply overwrite the data I have currently collected, or should I erase those and start downloading them again? I don't want to have a bunch of orphaned files sitting around... or some kind of file-type that is easily corrupted, but being used as default simply due to its being there.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

True - endianness is not the real problem, at least on armel. But there are other platform specifics that have kept GDBM databases created on one platform unreadable on another platform.

Before Maemo Mapper started using GDBM, there was a little app called WinMapper that someone wrote that would download maps on a Windows machine into the right directory structure. When we switched to GDBM, that app not only broke, but could not be fixed due to the differences in GDBM database files across platforms.

SQLite should solve that problem.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Yes, I've thought about it a lot. It was--in fact--my original design for layering, but as it turned out, I didn't write the layering functionality - it was contributed by another user. And at this point, layers are still a someone-power-user-ish feature, and the penalty is only at setup time, so I haven't felt motivated to modify the code in a backward-compatible way.

Maybe someday!

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

No, but Maemo Mapper uses very little floating-point math, so it probably wouldn't make much of a difference, even if all of the maemo devices had hardware floating-point units.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Unfortunately, yes. But you are certainly welcome to keep your maps in your existing database - Maemo Mapper will continue to support GDBM along with SQLite.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

I'm unfamiliar with gmapmaker, but unless it specifically targets Maemo Mapper's SQLite database schema, I doubt it that you could use it to create Maemo Mapper map databases.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

You must explicitly create a new repository in order to use SQLite - you existing repositories will continue to use the GDBM format. Nothing will be overwritten.

If you decide to delete your existing repositories, though, remember that Maemo Mapper will not delete the underlying GDBM file for you. You should delete that yourself. Alternatively, you can use the "Manage Maps" dialog to delete the maps in a repository, then Compact the repository before deleting it in Maemo Mapper. This won't delete the file completely, but it will clear it out and give it zero size.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

John,

First Maemo Mapper is the only application I use the N800 for, a true killer app. I lost the use of the google terrain and google sat recently. I thought it might be because I had reached a 2gb db limit, confirmed by your comments in this thread about the limits of gdbm. I thought maybe there were corrupted files so I have deleted everything at the gui level and reinstalled multiple times. I tried the 2.6 upgrade but it picked up old configuration data even though I had deleted old databases, redirected to mmc2. I don't see any at the xterm level either but maybe there are hidden files or I am not looking in the right directories? I want to start fresh with SQlIte but I don't want it defaulting to GDBM because of left over config files. It is possible from threads I have found that there is a problem with google changing their parameters and that is actually why the repositories that were working stopped working? Thanks for any comments on getting a clean start to getting maemo mapper back up and running. OS2008

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

How do we add a repo to use the new format? Just download the example repos?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

When you create a new repo, you will be asked which format to use. If you use the "Download..." option, newly created repositories will be in the SQLite format.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Ok, guess I'll delete my old map files and migrate to the new one. Also, do we need to redo POI.db as well?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

POI.db was always in SQLite format, so no need to do anything more with it.

Maemo Mapper v2.6.1 Released
 

v2.6 had a bug that caused a segfault on startup for new users. v2.6.1 fixes that bug. Thanks to those that reported the problem.

If you haven't had any problems with Maemo Mapper, you can ignore v2.6.1, but if you experience a segfault on startup, you should upgrade.

v2.6.1 is in the garage now, and it will be available in the repos shortly.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

I installed 2.6 , then deleted all the repos that it picked up in map manager. Then uninstalled, deleted all the files I could find and re-installed. Working now with SQlite db's but Google Sat and Terrain still don't work even from the "download repos" at least for Sat.
cheers

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

I can also confirm that Google Sat is not working for me either after the update.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Can anyone explain how to setup the new APRS functionality?

Or does anyone know how to contact Rob Williams?

Thanks!

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Would there be any possibility to have a menu entry to browse POI's that you can just tap on and go to without having to enter an address or anything?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Same here, I'm pretty sure Google changed something.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Did it work before the update? Google may be blocking Google Sat requests from Maemo Mapper.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

You should be able to do this with the "Browse POIs" dialog - just don't enter an address. (You may have to set a GPS position for it to work without an address - just tap-and-hold somewhere on the screen and select "Tap Point | Set as GPS Position".)

Or are you describing a different kind of functionality?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

If you have a Garage account, then you can see his Garage profile.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Neither before nor after.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Google Sat is no longer working for me also. At a zoom factor of 10 it saves a 96kb size file that only gives a black display. This is after deleting the 70mb file with non-updated data. I also get the message "182 maps failed to download".

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

the more i poke at maemo-mapper, the more i wish that the center dpad could at least be set to open the manage maps dialog...

also, some way to tune the number of jumps pr press of zoom key (unless i have overlooked some setting in all of the tabs available). i find myself jumping two and two levels more often then not...

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Google sat / terrain / etc. downloads have started failing for me too. This started about a month ago; I was hoping the update would fix it.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Hmm.. so I deleted all my repos, and deleted the maps. I started it up and it's using the new format. However now it keeps saving them in /home/MyDocs/maps. Even if I change the folder to /media/mmc1/MaemoMapper it still defaults to /home/MyDocs/maps no matter how many times I set it that way and delete the maps in /home/MyDocs/maps..


Edit: Nevermind it was only traffic.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

When setting up the SQLite repo I used the same URL for Google Street as before. Is this the corect URL?

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Yes, it's the same URL. You can tell that your using the new format if the file location doesn't end in .db

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

of all the places to put zoom step controls...

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

If you are having problems with Google Satellite, please try this URL Format:

http://khm.google.com/kh?v=37&x=%d&y=%d&z=%d

It looks like Google Satellite maps have indeed changed their URL format, now using a format to Google Street maps (i.e. coordinate-based, not quad-tree).

If this works for everyone, I'll update the "Download..." functionality.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

didnt work for me, only brought up a stretchd out world map that wouldnt zoom in

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

Satellite maps might be a lost cause from Google. Theyir spyware-detection algorithms are too sensitive to consider Maemo Mapper requests to be legitimate. I can't even test it in my browser without hitting their "We're sorry" page.

Oh well, there's always Virtual Earth.

Re: Maemo Mapper v2.6 - SQLite and APRS
 

I think your right, was tired of the apparent download limit that it would place...just like their sat maps better though, better resolution.