[Wlug] GPS on Linux

[Andy Stewart]

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Richard Klein wrote:
> Andy,
> 	I think you were talking about using a GPS receiver with Linux after 
> the last meeting.  The receiver I had mentioned came in a couple days 
> ago.  It's a Navibe SP611 
> (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=NAVIBE-ORN), and it does indeed output NMEA 0183. 
> The Navibe website is easy enough to find (http://www.navibe.com/), but 
> it doesn't even acknowledge the existence of the SP611.
> 
> 	Linux seems to recognize the serial/USB bridge in the GPS as a Prolific PL-2303:
> dmesg says:
> usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
> pl2303 2-1:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
> usb 2-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
> 
> But I can't get GPSMan or GPSDrive to recognize it.  "cat /dev/ttyUSB0" gets no response, and I have to hit CTRL-C to get the command prompt back.
> 
> Per this page (http://koti.mbnet.fi/lonnberg/pl2303x.html) I found that bMaxPacketSize0 = 64, which suggests the bridge is a PL-2303X rather than a plain vanilla PL-2303.  Apparently this used to require a patch, but only up to kernel 2.6.8.  uname -r says I'm at 2.6.15-1-686, so this shouldn't be an issue.
> 
> What should I try now?
> 
> Oh, the GPS receiver did send a stream of NMEA data to my Windows computer at work with GPSDiag, so the reciever doesn't seem to be defective.
> 

HI Rich,

I would do the following:

1) Get the kernel sources for your kernel rev and double check that the
required patch is indeed included.  I agree that it shouldn't be an
issue, but for the 10 minutes it would take to double check, I think it
is time well spent.

2) I would use (x)minicom and aim it a /dev/ttyUSB0.  Then, plug in the
device.  If it sends anything to the computer, it should show up on the
screen for (x)minicom (yes, assuming that it sends something that is a
printable character).

Let us know the results of these two experiments.  Hopefully, that will
bring us closer to a solution.

Later,

Andy

- --
Andy Stewart, Founder
Worcester Linux Users' Group (http://www.wlug.org)
Chelmsford Linux Meetup Group (http://linux.meetup.com/393)
Amateur Radio:  KB1OIQ
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