USB Earthmate - patch for gpsd support

dignome · 04-02-2004, 04:45 PM

The cypress_m8 module started being distributed with linux kernels 2.6.10 and above. The instructions originally here have since forth been deprecated. This is only for people wishing to use the Earthmate with the USB interface. As mentioned here and elsewhere, the device can be connected via a standard rs232 serial interface.

To enable the driver, from menuconfig or xconfig select:

Device Drivers->USB Support->USB Serial Converter support->
<M> USB Cypress M8 USB Serial Driver (as either built in or module)

Compile, install, then reboot. Depending on your distro, the node being created by the driver can show up as /dev/tts/USB0, /dev/ttyUSB0, or /dev/usb/tts/0 (the number will vary). If you have udev, you can configure it to create the node however you like based on the product and vendor ids; VID:0x1163, PID:0x0100. Check with your distro for support on where usbserial nodes can be found and for further information on configuring udev.

For people not using linux or using a kernel less than 2.6.10 or even the 2.4 series, please check out the emul project at:

http://developer.berlios.de/projects/emul

hijinks21 · 04-06-2004, 04:41 PM

excellent post. I was just about to sell my earthmate cause it couldn't be used in linux.

i'm bookmarking this post

dignome · 04-02-2005, 02:32 PM

FYI, anyone still wishing to use their usb earthmate with gpsd should check this out:

http://developer.berlios.de/projects/emul

I'm trying to make it as platform independent as possible. The dependcies include:

libusb>=0.1.8
pthread support

rando · 04-02-2005, 02:54 PM

As stated above, the USB Earthmate has a serial ouput and Cypress converter to provide USB support. What's less known is that the internal serial interface is directly available at the connector allowing the USB to be bypassed completely. All you have to do is solder a few wires to the supplied USB cable to convert it into a serial cable. Search the forums for the details. The output is standard NMEA over serial@4800,8,n,1. It should work with ANY NMEA compliant software on ANY OS.

SnyperBob · 04-05-2005, 10:44 AM

hey guys.....can someone edit the title of this thread to iniclude the word 'Linux' in it? I don't run Linux, but when I get time to try it, this will be very interesting. I think it may help other people trying to search the forums as well.