GPS, CXO. amd topo maps

[Beartooth Duffer]

I have Garmin's MapSource Topo 3.0 and Maptech's Terrain Navigator 5.03
both installed under CrossoverOffice 5.0.1 Pro, running on Fedora Core 4;
I have been unable to install Topo.com 2.6.1, and had an intermediate
result from trying Delorme TopoUSA 4.0 -- sometimes it *seems* to install,
but won't open, or opens only to a plain tan screen ruled into parts,
each labelled "No controls specified." Sometimes the install fails
entirely. (The same also happens on TopoUSA 3.0 and on the same supplier's
3-D Topo Quads, btw & fwiw.)

The two that do install open all right, and seem to do things internal
to themselves normally ; but they don't manage to connect either to a
Garmin Etrex Vista or to a Garmin Rino 120.

Following suggestions from the CXO list, I have made sure my user btth is
a member of the uucp group on that machine, and also that I see 

[root at localhost dev]# ls -lL ttyS*
crw-rw-rw-  1 root uucp 4, 64 Feb 25 13:02 ttyS0
crw-rw-rw-  1 root uucp 4, 65 Feb 25 13:02 ttyS1
crw-rw-rw-  1 root uucp 4, 66 Feb 14 13:57 ttyS2
crw-rw-rw-  1 root uucp 4, 67 Feb 14 13:57 ttyS3
[root at localhost dev]# 

but the GPSs still don't connect.

The same GPSs, with the same cables, do connect to the same software
(including the ones that CXO doesn't handle) on a machine running
XPPro/SP2, and do exchange data; so I doubt the problem is hardware. (One
of my machines has a short pin in its only serial port; but I don't see
anything wrong with any of the others.)

All clues gratefully accepted!

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
FC4; Pine 4.64, Pan 0.14.2.91; Privoxy 3.0.3; CXO 5.0.1
Dillo 0.8.5, Opera 8.51, Firefox 1.0.7, Epiphany 1.6.5
Remember I have little idea what I am talking about.