Notices

This worked for me. I am now running maemo-mapper 2.3 on my 770 with 2007he. The one thing I found was that libgps16 has been replaced with libgps17 so the above download link does not work anymore. I had to find the updated package on the site. I downloaded it from here http://packages.debian.org/sid/armel/libgps17/download I used one of the ftp links because firefox just opened the file in a browser window when I clicked the www USA links.

I thought it might be helpful to restate the contents of the previous post and others which I have been using to modify the gps connection process so that Maemo Mapper 2.3 can connect with my Bluetooth GPS device (iBT-GPS). I have added some items that I found necessary to complete the process for my particular setup. My Nokia 770 is running OS2006 and Mapper had been working nicely until I installed a Mapper update a couple of months ago. Mapper would then no longer load at all. I have now removed that version and installed version 2.3 which does start up properly. Now all I have to do is fix the gps connection failure problem.

As outlined in previous posts, I am starting by using wget to download http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/gnua...36-2_armel.deb to my memory card. Then I
“mkdir tmp1” and use
“dpkg --extract libgps17* tmp1”
This creates a subdirectory structure which contains “libgps.so.17.0.0”. Now I get the version 2.36 update package to replace my gpsd which is currently version 2.32,
“wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/gnua...6-2_armel.deb”
and extract that package
“mkdir tmp2” and use
“dpkg --extract gpsd* tmp2”
This subdirectory structure contains the new gpsd executable. Now after renaming my original gpsd file I again follow the previous post
“mv /usr/sbin/gpsd /usr/sbin/gpsd.old”
“cp tmp2/usr/sbin/gpsd /usr/sbin”
“cp tmp1/usr/lib/* /usr/lib”
and continue by changing to the /usr/lib directory and adding a link
“cd /usr/lib”
“ln -s libdbus-1.so.2.0.0 libdbus-1.so.3”
However attempting to then run gpsd, with or without parameters, gave a library loading error so I ran “ldconfig” and then when I run
“gpsd -n -N -D5 -F /tmp/gps.sock”
gpsd loads and remains active. However when enabling gps in Mapper, gpsd gives messages about “channel assignment failed” and that the client “turned on raw mode”.
Therefore we will try the rfcomm steps
“rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 00:0B:0D:86:C4:B7”
then, as shown in a previous post, running
“rfcomm” produces “rfcomm0: 00:0B:0D:86:C4:B7 channel 1 clean”
As later pointed out by gnuite there is no need to run
“/usr/sbin/gpsd -N -n -F /tmp/gps.sock /dev/rfcomm0”
because you can set the File Path under GPS in Mapper Settings to /dev/rfcomm0 and select it and gpsd will be loaded and unloaded as you enable/disable GPS in Mapper.
To keep the /dev/rfcomm0 device present between reboots, you modify the /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf file read at startup by bluez-utils in /etc/init.d. Change the rfcomm.conf file so that it binds at startup (bind yes), put in the mac address for your gps device and you are finished.

But that doesn't actually tell you which direction your heading is. With the map rotated to GPS direction, it gets difficult to tell which direction the blue line is pointing. With a number displayed somewhere, it's easy to tell at a glance which direction you're going.

If the map is rotated to the GPS direction, then that blue line is always pointed up. In that case, you can use the compass (displayed in the lower right) to figure out your heading.

Yes, if it's there, but it's not as accurate as an actual number. For me, it's quicker and requires less mental gyration to see the heading in degrees than to mentally rotate the compass. I understand that it's not important to most people, though, and is probably more trouble to program than it's worth.

Thanks, I found it very helpful - I haven't been using unix much lately and the more detailed description really helped.

I didn't have my GPS mac address in front of me, so I started up Maemo Mapper to look it up in the settings. I found that Maemo mapper can now connect to the GPS, so I didn't follow any of the extra steps. This is on 2007HE (4.2007.46-3) on a N770 with i-Blue 737 GPS. In Maemo Mapper settings I'm using the GPS directly, not through the File Path or GPSD options. All seems to be working properly now.

I have just released Maemo Mapper v2.3.1 for OS2006, OS2007, and OS2008.

This release adds the ability to "compact" (aka "reorganize") a map cache database file. Due to the nature of GDBM, this is the only way a map cache database can decrease in size. (Otherwise, the space used by deleted maps is reused to store new maps.)

Also in this release is a key bug fix for those who have had problems with Maemo Mapper remaining in memory even after closing it. A symptom of this is not being able to start Maemo Mapper again after closing it. If you are experiencing these symptoms, you should upgrade to v2.3.1.

I also added Swedish translation strings, courtesy Daniel Nylander.

CHANGELOG:
* Fixed bug where Maemo Mapper persists in memory after closing.
* Added ability to "compact" (aka "reorganize") a map cache database.
* Added documentation for using custom POI icons.
* Added Swedish translation strings.

Hi. Many thanks for your efforts. maemo mapper rocks!

I am developing a new map file system for MM2.x right now, and want to plug it into MM2.2 to see any improvement.

I still like MM1.x file system, which is a lot faster. The draw back is the size of space map files take, since most modern SDHC card uses 32k as the default allocation unit, while the map tile file average size is around 6k, so 80% space is wasted. GDBM is not a very good solution I think. It's not scalable, it will slows down quite big with the tile number grows, on the other side the op file system just slows down a little, because most directory table or even fat table are cached.

My compromising solution for speed and space is to to still use MM1.x file structure, but each map file will hold up to 8 map tiles. The x directory name is (x>>2), y file name is (y>>1). In this way 8 map tiles in one file will be as m=(x>>2), n=(y>>1), so they are (m, n), (m+1, n), (m+2, n), (m+3, n), (m, n+1), (m+1, n+1), (m+2, n+1), (m+3, n+1), 8 tiles. Because of the nature of N8xx display resolution, one file reading can cover the whole screen. The speed may be even better than MM1.x.

As for the file size, my calculation shows that each tile wastes about 2k space in average, down from MM1.x's 26k, which is a significant improvement. Also a smart cache system can be implemented just using a few M bytes memory(MM2.3 uses 32M). The algorithm will be using the "distance" between the current displaying map tile and stored map tile, to decide which cache slot will be released if required. The cached map file with the biggest "distance" will be freed first, thus it only caches the around navigating area.

The only drawback of this file system is that you can't use the multi-thread downloading, I haven't figure out the way how multi-thread can do that, since you may hit the chance that different dn threads may try to modify/insert tiles into one map file.

That's my 2 cents of improvement idea, hope the developer can consider it and do some test. I am trying to develop a module based on that, but I have to say I have some trouble with the linux platform setup issue.

I used Maemo Mapper the first time this weekend, on a trip from central Oklahoma down to Austin, TX. I loaded up a mess of google street maps, because I knew I was going to be poking around in Austin and then later in Ft Worth.

VERY useful, particularly when the directions to some place in Austin I'd been given weren't good enough, and we had to find the place via the GPS maps instead.

Three times on the way home, however, the mapper app closed itself. Each time but the last, I just restarted it; the last time, it restarted, but could never find the GPS receiver. I wound up actually shutting my N810 down and waiting 30 seconds and then restarting it, and it was happy from that point on.

Don't suppose there's a logfile somewhere I can pull up to see why it crashed?

This was on my new N810, and the help files were very straightforward; setting it up was easy to do (although I had to figure out what zoom level I wanted to load, and that was trial-and-error there).

-Jennifer