Notices

help? anyone?

Build in repo is 2916 from January. http://maemo.org/packages/view/navit/

FWIW i installed the version from repo and after moving the XML file and grabbing a map as per Magellan's instruction, it "works". My goal is to get the dev to upload a more recent build so more people can/will use this. That failing, i'm going to try to automate as much as possible of the process of installing using the chollya packages and provide a script.

I think this could be a hugely popular app if installation wasn't such a moving target.

I would appreciate feedback from those who have got the more recent builds working: gtk/internal/Qt? I assume the Qt users installed the experimental Qt 4.7 packages to get that working, right? TIA for info.

Edit: Had a chat with chollya on IRC and here's what i learned:

• Broken libfreetype and need for xslt make autobuilding compatibility a pain, hence reticence of dev to use maemo.org repos.
• qpainter renderer and internal gui are best combination at the present.
• Only the qml gui requires Qt 4.7 and it's not complete, anyway; chollya builds are against Qt 4.7 for this reason alone and the qpainter should be compatible with Qt 4.6 (which is installed by default on N900 now).

By forcing the latest qpainter package from chollya's package repo, i got the latest build (3478) to run. I will either provide a script to help others do the same, or work with devs to get new version uploaded.

Other random observations: i'd recommend against using the 3D view, especially when walking/biking due to the lack of compass on the N900. The jitter in GPS leads to swings in heading that cause a lot more redraws than are required in 2D display mode.

Installing Latest Navit

Edit 2011.06: There is a much newer build available in a third party repository. Installation instructions are here, later in this same thread. I don't recommend using this script at this point.

Consider this to be Extras-devel level risk (experimental/may cause your navel to invert). It is a script that downloads a recent build from http://www.chollya.org/navit (the only developer building packages for Maemo), installs it and the dependencies, and also downloads the configuration files.

To install the latest version of Navit, download this with your N900: navit-install.txt and save to "N900".

Then, make sure you have rootsh installed (use App Manager) and open an xterm window. Type:

Pay attention to the output. You may need to answer "y" to a prompt.. There will be some warnings due to forced install and because of the file moving from the FAT filesystem to Ext. If all goes well it will eventually tell you "You need to copy your map to the navit_maps folder of N900. Name it mymap.bin."

Getting a map
(Note: this part could be done on N900, but is verrrrry slow--do it with a PC.) You can get a map of your area here. Save it to your PC, rename it mymap.bin, and then connect your N900 with USB in Mass Storage mode and copy mymap.bin to the navit_maps folder. Alternative method: If you must do this part on the N900, use a pre-processed map for your country of interest, which can be downloaded from here. Pick the <your country>.navit.bin.zip file and download it to navit_maps in the N900 folder (AKA MyDocs). Unzip it. Rename the resulting map to mymap.bin.

To use a free garmin map, you'll need to edit .navit/maps.xml and either copy the existing entry or change it. The type should be "garmin" and the map name altered as appropriate. Garmin maps end with ".img".

If the script ended with "Success", you're done. Run Navit from icon.

Let me know if it works for you (or doesn't ), so i can fix mistakes in my script and report bugs to the devs. I will update this post as needed.

Routing
To get routing instructions, you can either use bookmarks or tell navit to use a place as the destination. Do this by zooming in to the place you want to go to and going into the menu. Then select Actions->Map and either "Set as destination" or "Add as bookmark". Cancel routing from the Actions menu by selecting "Stop Navigation".

Tips and Tricks

• Get as small of a map area as is useful for you. Map size affects performance. You can have multiple maps and enable/disable them from the GUI menu.
• If things are sluggish, zoom in one level. The high-resolution screen of the N900 requires it to really process a lot of image elements at intermediate zoom levels (when many things are visible). I'm looking into changing the zoom level where some features show up to make the default install a bit more snappy.
• You can enable the "Northing" option in the menu to make your map always stay with North "up" or rotate with your heading. This setting seems to periodically switch itself off. Sorry.

Known Issues

• Some POI icons are broken in this release. This fixes it. This is because they are moving to all svg icons, but svg versions aren't available for some icons. If you have artistic abilities, you might help.
• Quitting by "x" in upper right doesn't fully kill app. Use "Quit" button in Actions menu or Ctrl-C in xterm where the app was started to close it. If you accidentally close navit this way, type "killall navit" in xterm to get rid of the rogue process. 1
• Starting from icon doesn't work if you have closed navit using the Maemo5 quit button. (See previous item.)
• Selecting the fullscreen icon sometimes causes a crash. Going fullscreen from the GUI's display menu usually works. 2
• Issue commented on in previous post can now be fixed by modifying config file for "vehicle" to increase the threshold. 3
• Searching can be limited due to the nature of OSM and some limitations in navit.
• Selecting POIs menu option in GUI leaves navit busy forever. Suggest not doing it. 4

Fullscreen mode with routing:


Updating navit
Due to the forced dependencies, it would be best to start by uninstalling the previous version. If you originally installed navit with the script, use the uninstall script. Otherwise use App Manager. Then get the latest install script and follow the install instructions above.

Removing navit
This script will uninstall navit. Download it and move/chown/etc. it in exactly the same way as the above script except that it is called navit-remove.txt instead of navit-install.txt.

navit-xml2.tar.gz

Thanks Flandry, nice script!
Some problems:

• the .navit folder has to be under /home/user and not /home/user/MyDocs
• the name of the map has to be mymap.bin and not mymap.dat
• the download of the navit-xml.tar.gz file in the script doesn't work for me (I used the browser to download it)

To create a route just search for a location and set it as destination.

I don't really understand what you mean. It is under /home/user in the script.

Oops. Fixed. wget doesn't download attachments with the filename.

The updated script should work completely now. (Crosses fingers.)

Ah yes, I was wrong, I missed the "cd /home/user" at the beginning of the script, and because of the not working wget I created the ".navit" folder by hand at the wrong place.

I just tested the script from a wiped navit install and it seems to work. There's also a relatively easy fix for the invisible gui icons described here. I'll include that change to the XML config files next update. Done

I believe this is a complete, simpler replacement to magellan's very helpful but now rather old guide.

Hey flandy,

I've run your code and it seems to install fine, gets to the copy your maps dialog.

I've copied the maps over.

But I can't get it to run,

I've typed "navit" in exterm.

I get a ew errors.

map_rect_new_textfile unable to open textfile /home/user/.nait/bookmark.txt

navit: plugin_load:can't load ' /opt/navit/lib/font/libfont_freetype.so', error "libfribidi.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory'

navitplugin_load:can't load ' /opt/navit/osd/libosd_core.so', already loaded

It sounds like it might be trying to use a different renderer or gui. Did you have it installed previously? The script won't overwrite a previous configuration. To clear out the configuration from a previous install, type
at the xterm prompt and then install (or reinstall) using the script.

I have updated the post with a new script that fixes the GUI icon issue and also adds espeak for voice navigation. It's good for some laughs...

hmm...

this is the first time I'ev isntalled navit.

I uninstalled it using your script,

ran the

rm -r .navit command.

Reinstalled

still the same thing.

Anything else you can think of?