Mappery : Ye! Utuvienyes! and also Eureka!

Beartooth Beartooth at comcast.net
Wed May 13 15:07:24 UTC 2009


On Tue, 12 May 2009 17:28:03 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:

> I far more amazed that you got a non-trivial app to work in wine than
> that you got your gps to work with it :-).
> 
> I try wine every so often, and every time window updates are a disaster.
> Dragging stuff leaves trails, scrolling windows runs the contents
> through a shredder, etc.

	Well, since these have been the only apps chaining me to the 
Gates of Hell ever since '98, I've been trying them anew every year or 
three, sometimes putting in a lot of effort a/o getting a lot of help in 
many places.

	I have to say I've seen steady improvement over that time. It's 
not perfect yet -- I don't like the way windows drag, either -- but it 
*is* usable at last.

	At first, it was more than anybody except maybe an Alpha Double 
Plus Technoid could do even to install them, let alone run them usefully 
once installed.

	But part of the trouble, according to what I hear in the 
electronic corridors, is that Wine's handling of serial ports has always 
been buggy. Another part (my guess only) is that very few wine users have 
any need for serial ports -- naturally enough, since ever fewer new 
computers even have one. Yet Garmin has only recently gone to USB -- none 
of my equipment has it, and adapters don't help.

	Anyway, when I began the current try, Wine readily installed 
Garmin's MapSource (old) and TopoUS2008, though it would still not handle 
my older Garmin MapSource topo software; it also, this time, took 
Maptech's old software, which it hadn't before. (It still doesn't take 
DeLorme, and I haven't tried Topo.com, which is my least favorite.)

	Both the Garmin and Maptech suites not only installed readily, 
but do launch and run -- so that they were of some use, even without a 
GPS. 

	My own chief use, though, is to map my hunting grounds; it's 
surprising what a difference an accurate scale map can make, even to 
ground you think you know yard by yard. 

	For that, of course, getting the software to talk to the GPS is a 
sine qua non; I've kept one dual-boot PC and one laptop for years, just 
to do it. Now I can wipe them; I may even try F11 (which I was planning 
to sit out) after all ...

	We opened champagne last night, and I delighted in my one 
remaining shot of Glenfarclas Cask Strength; I'll go special-order 
another fifth (and keep it in the gun safe).

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.




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