Thread: Roadnav User report - A Free GPS solution for the Mac

See if this discussion helps http://www.mp3car.com/wiki/index.php/GPS.

First, make sure the driver is installed properly. Plug the GPS in and then go to the About This Macintosh selection under the Apple menu. Click 'More Info' and the System Profiler will launch. Look under USB for your receiver. If it's there, that's a good sign.

Then, make sure you have activated the port correctly. This is probably where you've gone wrong. Open the Preferences-->Network control panel with the GPS plugged in and you should be informed that you have a new port available. You have to select "Network Port Configurations" from the drop down and check the box to activate it.

Since the Mac doesn't have serial ports, what it does is mimic them virtually. The driver you installed will write data to and from the GPS device to a file located at /dev/tty.serial1 or some similarly named file (it depends on the name of your GPS device, which you can get from the Network Port Configurations).

Then, get an app called GPSUtility for the Mac. It will give you a drop down of the possible devices. Pick the one you think it is and open the GPS window. It will show the actual data streaming in from the GPS. If you can't get it to work with that, then the installation of the Holux driver or your network port configuration isn't working properly.

Once you get it to work with GPSUtility, it ought to show up in Roadnav. I think you'll have to select NMEA mode for the Holux.

After you've mastered that, look into using GPSDx so you can share that receiver with multiple applications. All you'll have to do is install GPSDx, then launch the ConfigGPSDx application that comes with it. You specify your GPS device and start. It will tell you if it's working properly.

Then you go back to Roadnav and select "Use GPSD" in the GPS options. Do the same with the other apps that you want to use

Glad that you shared this BugByte :-)

Originally Posted by PMouse

Followed your instructions. Got the Mac to recognize the GPS. RoadNav still did not want to play nice with the receiver. Either wouldn't recognize it, or would hang and freeze the computer.


Any suggestions?

Well, that's progress!

1. Are you using gpsdx or not?
2. Did you use GPS Utility? If so, did you see data streaming across the window in NMEA sentences? If so, good sign. If not, your GPS isn't working. Otherwise, were you able to get a fix in GPS utility using your GPS?
3. Does roadnav run without freezing on your Mac? What kind of Mac is it (Intel or PPC)?
4. What version of roadnav are you using?

If roadnav runs without freezing on the Mac but freezes when you make the GPS connection, try it a different way. If you were using gpsdx, use the gpsdx config program to turn it off and try connecting using a different method.

Try a different program with your GPS, like GPS2GE. That reads data from gpsdx and outputs it to a file in kml format so you can use Google Earth as your nav program. It's pretty simple and might have less issues working with the GPS. You don't have to go to the trouble of hooking it up to GE. Just run the program and hit 'start' (if you have gpsdx installed). It will tell you if it is getting a fix from the GPS.

Also, go to roadnav's site and check out the forum there. I reported several of the bugs I mentioned in my write up and he's put fixes in the new beta release to handle the errors.

Are you doing your testing indoors or outside where you can be sure to get a fix?

I found out I needed to make a 250 mile trip and suddenly realized all my gps solutions werent working, all I had was my powerbook g4. So I went onto this forum, read this thread, installed the software, and was out the door in 10 minutes. And it got me there!

Rerouting over 7 miles to destination should be avoided. Speach didnt work for me.

I want to donate money to the dev. Is this possible?