[OSM-newbies] Making Garmin eTrex Vista responsive to a Linux system

Simon Ward simon at bleah.co.uk
Fri Dec 26 23:56:10 GMT 2008


On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 12:14:20AM +0100, Johannes Huesing wrote:
> Andy Street <mail at andystreet.me.uk> [Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 10:51:16PM CET]:
> [...]
> > The workaround I found was to run gpsbabel as root so the problem is
> > probably related to the device permissions.
> 
> This did it for me; I can download waypoints and tracks nicely. Thank you
> very much!

Then it does sound like a permissions problem.  First check that the
udev rules are working as they should — they should change the group
owner of any devices to ‘plugdev’:

 1. Run ‘lsusb’ to find the bus and device number of your gps.  Example:

    $ lsusb
    Bus 005 Device 005: ID 091e:0003 Garmin International GPSmap (various models)
    Bus 005 Device 004: ID 045e:0040 Microsoft Corp. Wheel Mouse Optical
    …

 2. USB device files of the form usbdev${BUS}.${DEV}* should exist (no
    leading zeroes), with the group ‘plugdev’:

    $ ls -l /dev/usbdev5.5*
    crw-rw---- 1 root plugdev 252, 21 2008-12-21 22:08 /dev/usbdev5.5_ep00
    crw-rw---- 1 root plugdev 252, 19 2008-12-21 22:08 /dev/usbdev5.5_ep02
    crw-rw---- 1 root plugdev 252, 18 2008-12-21 22:08 /dev/usbdev5.5_ep81
    crw-rw---- 1 root plugdev 252, 20 2008-12-21 22:08 /dev/usbdev5.5_ep83

 3. Check the groups your user is in (type ‘groups’ on the
    command‐line).  One of them should be ‘plugdev’.  If not, add your
    user to that group: sudo adduser USERNAME plugdev; sg plugdev

If group ownership is not plugdev in step 2, you can always try
installing garmin-forerunner-tools from intrepid universe as it contains
the correct udev rules.  (The rest of the tools in the package may or
may not be useful to you as they’re presumably written for
Forerunner/Edge devices.)

Hope that helps, 
Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/newbies/attachments/20081226/c08503f2/attachment.pgp>


More information about the newbies mailing list