Topo USA 4.0 Tips

Support for Garmin GPS. This was tested with a basic Garmin GPS eTrex Venture model with a Radio Shack USB - Serial Cable. This is not the cheapest adapter cable but does include the Plytronics PL2303 USB-Serial Controller. Prereq's A kernel that supports the PL2303 controller A kernel that supports hotplug USB devices I used Xandros 3.0.1 OCE with Codeweavers 4.2 that meets both prerequisites. 1) Connect the USB to Serial Cable to a USB port and Connect the Garmin GPS to the Adapter Cable. 2) Check that the system recognizes the adapter cable and get the device that it has been mapped to using the command "dmesg" or whatever you use to look at system messages. My system showed that the PL2303 converter was attached to /dev/ttyUSB0 as follows: pl2303 4-2:1.0: PL-2303 converter detected usb 4-2: PL-2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0 3) Map the Linux Port to a COM1 port under CrossOver ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.cxoffice/dotwine/dosdevices/com1 4) Setup the Garmin GPS interface settings for NMEA IN/OUT and make a note of the Baud Rate. 5) Setup TopoUSA 4.0 for a Garmin GPS with NMEA IN/OUT with a matching baud rate. I used 4800, 8, N, 1 6) in TopoUSA 4.0 select "Start GPS" under the GPS tab. Note: the extrex venture does not support waypoint exchange with the NMEA specification. Garmin states that you must use the Garmin protocol for Waypoint exchange. Topo 4.0 does support the Garmin protocol but I have not been able to get this to work. I would recommend (at this time) a Garmin GPS that supports the NMEA protocol with Waypoints in order to be able to upload/download waypoint data.