Notices

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!

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?

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..

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!