This is an old revision of the document!
Table of Contents
Using GPS-Devices on a Slackwarecomputer
I'm using a Garmin Etrex Legend HCx, my expriences in this howto refer to this device, but should also work at least for any Garmin-GPS-receiver.
The appropriate Module
When the GPS-device is connected to the computer, it becomes recognized as an USB-device by udev and the module garmin_gps is loaded. In most cases the module will not work for us
udev-rules
If you want to access the device as a non-root user, you can add the plugdev-group via an udev-rule I have the following rule in a file /etc/udev/rules.d/51-garmin.rules
ATTR{idVendor}=="091e", ATTR{idProduct}=="0003", MODE="666", GROUP="plugdev"
which allows the users of the plugdev-group to access the device.
Software
The software which allows us to access such devices from Linux is gpsbabel which is available at slackbuilds.org. As an example here the code which transfers a gpx waypoint-file to a Garmin-GPS-device.
gpsbabel -i gpx -f $file -o garmin -F usb:
Further Reading
Sources
* Originally written by User Markus Hutmacher