Computer for our boats

Bill NH · January 15, 2009, 11:37:46 AM

I have an Asus EEE 900 netbook which I am currently experimenting with... anyone know of any navigation or weather-related software written for LINUX? Or will I need to go the WINE route? I am fairly new to Linux but really like the small footprint and 7 second boot time and would like to avoid going to Windows XP.

Godot · January 15, 2009, 11:49:15 AM

For navigation check out NavGator.

I downloaded it but haven't tried it yet. It works with Windows and Linux.

CapnK · January 15, 2009, 11:49:44 AM

Bill -

For GPS nav/chartplotting, SeaClear II works great under WINE in Linux:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3659

There is quite a bit of discussion around on the 'net about running it on netbooks, too.

Bill NH · January 16, 2009, 08:33:06 AM

Quote from: CapnK on January 15, 2009, 11:49:44 AM
Bill -

For GPS nav/chartplotting, SeaClear II works great under WINE in Linux:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3659

There is quite a bit of discussion around on the 'net about running it on netbooks, too.

Thanks- I hadn't noticed SeaClear on the WINE apps list before. Last night I installed WINE and SeaClear, all up and running! I also played a bit with the Grib viewer, but that had a bunch of windows dependencies that I didn't want to start loading so backed off. Adventures with a linux newbie... ???

Tim · January 16, 2009, 09:40:53 AM

Bill, Please report back on how well the setup works. Do you have a GPS antenna for it? Are you going to be testing it on your voyage?

Tim

Bill NH · January 16, 2009, 11:53:08 AM

I'm still playing with ideas, but a puck-style GPS antenna is definitely part of the plan. I'm running out of time to put this all together before I head out with Ocean Classroom though, so I suspect that it will just be my sextant making the trip with me. I do hope to have it together to test on WanderBird this summer though...

Captain Smollett · January 16, 2009, 12:06:36 PM

Quote from: Bill NH on January 16, 2009, 08:33:06 AM
Quote from: CapnK on January 15, 2009, 11:49:44 AM
Bill -

For GPS nav/chartplotting, SeaClear II works great under WINE in Linux:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3659

There is quite a bit of discussion around on the 'net about running it on netbooks, too.

Thanks- I hadn't noticed SeaClear on the WINE apps list before. Last night I installed WINE and SeaClear, all up and running! I also played a bit with the Grib viewer, but that had a bunch of windows dependencies that I didn't want to start loading so backed off. Adventures with a linux newbie... ???

Not sure if this will clear up the dependency issues you see, but if you go to the wine site, find and download a file called "winescripts," you have in one tool many, many dll's to fix problems running apps with wine. These dll's tend to work better than those obtained from MS site and they are all in one place (don't have to hunt 'em down).

Hope this helps...

CapnK · February 02, 2009, 11:22:59 PM

Here's a new netbook that will be coming out soon, according to the story below. It only uses 2.5 watts of energy, so the manufacturer says runtime will be up to 9.5 hours on the included battery. It has generally faster hardware inside it also. Read on:

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS9895185354.html

Tim · February 02, 2009, 11:45:31 PM

Oo Oo the timing on this could be good! Of course then again I could make this old Dell self-destruct at any moment. ;D

maxiSwede · March 04, 2009, 06:24:24 AM

Hi Guys!

Time to revive this thread?

I got myself an Asus eee pc for a fraction of it's retail price at E-Bay. ;D

And even more appealing for a die-hard Macintosh guy like me is that it comes with a Linux distribution that I am really looking forward to getting acquainted with... ;D

Now to my question for the experts out there:

To run a Win navigation/chart program like Transas Tsunami or Maxsea fro instance on Linux. What EXACTLY do I have to do? ???

AdriftAtSea · March 04, 2009, 09:04:29 AM

MaxiSwede—

Quote from: CapnK on January 15, 2009, 11:49:44 AM
Bill -

For GPS nav/chartplotting, SeaClear II works great under WINE in Linux:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3659

There is quite a bit of discussion around on the 'net about running it on netbooks, too.

maxiSwede · March 04, 2009, 09:44:57 AM

Thanks Adrift,

I've seen it, I just don't know what to do with it after I downloaded it.

I need to install Wine first of all or what? ???

AdriftAtSea · March 04, 2009, 11:07:26 AM

Yes, you need to install wine. Wine provides linux the functionality to run some windows-based programs.

maxiSwede · March 04, 2009, 11:41:00 AM

OK, I'll have a go at it. ;)

AdriftAtSea · March 04, 2009, 06:32:08 PM

Keep us posted. It would help to know which distro of Linux you're using, since some are easier to use than others. :)

maxiSwede · March 05, 2009, 02:56:19 AM

Thanks Adrift,

I have done som web searches and it seems like Asus have installed a Linux Xandros distro. I v'e also found evidence of some guys installing Ubuntu instead. the limiting factor obviously the solid state 'hard drive' (= SD memory card) of a modest 4 GB. Therefore I would like to strip everything 'unnecessary' of it.

Basically just keep Firefox, Skype, maybe OpenOffice and then install Wine and the nav&charts stuff.

I will get back after having a go at it, hopefully during the weekend.

All the best

Captain Smollett · December 02, 2009, 11:07:09 AM

Quote from: Bill NH on January 16, 2009, 08:33:06 AM

I also played a bit with the Grib viewer, but that had a bunch of windows dependencies that I didn't want to start loading so backed off. Adventures with a linux newbie... ???

Okay, I recently had a chance to play around with some grib software on Linux.

I *think* the viewer Bill was trying was ugrib which does not install with wine because of a .Net framework dependency issue. I probably could have resolved this, but did NOT want to put time into it, so...

Options:

(1) For all you Linux guys that get tired of hearing "no software, no software, no software," consider running Windows in a Virtual Machine. If you happen to buy a computer with Windows pre-installed, you already legally own a copy of Windows and can thus run Linux as your primary OS and run Windows as needed. I do this with Windows 2000 for some consulting work for Windows centric clients.

Not the neatest solution if your plan is to be Windows-free, but in the pragmatics of the real world, we sometimes do what we have to do.

I did NOT try to install ugrib on my Windows 2000 virtual machine.

(2) Ignore the claims that these software solutions don't exist for Linux and try a grib viewer written for Linux. ;D

How about zyGrib?

I just installed it and so far it seems to work good. I initially tried it with a grib I downloaded from NOAA rather than using the internal grib download feature of zyGrib.

One note, though. Binary packages are only available for Debian and Ubuntu; if you are on another distro, you have to download the sources and compile. This was trivial, and actual compiling only took a few minutes.

(3) Use a web based grib viewer such as PassageWeather. There are two suboptions here:

(a) use the browser based viewer; only good if you have broadband
(b) download the pictures as a zip file; you don't get the raw data, so you will not be able to do certain things - such as, hover the mouse on a specific lat-long and get the data for THAT point, etc.

I'll be happy to post some screen shots of zyGrib if anyone is interested.

Frank · December 06, 2009, 12:26:51 PM

Figure this is as good a place as any to ask this question.....is there an easy, simple and relatively inexpensive way to increase wifi range (pick-up...not send) I can pick it up on the boat but its in/out a lot unless I anchor really close (bad spot) Don't mind spending a bit if range really improves.

Tim · December 06, 2009, 01:25:57 PM

( I have been waiting for a chance to do this)

QuoteFigure this is as good a place as any to ask this question.....is there an easy, simple and relatively inexpensive way to increase wifi range (pick-up...not send) I can pick it up on the boat but its in/out a lot unless I anchor really close (bad spot) Don't mind spending a bit if range really improves.

Sir, did you use the search function ;) ;D

If you weren't so busy having fun you might have noticed this thread

http://sailfar.net/forum/index.php?topic=2179.0

Frank · December 06, 2009, 02:01:06 PM

Thanks for the link Tim

Must admit I get a bit confused with this computer talk: Quote from Capt S on this

"I don't know if this applies to ALL Atheros chipset devices, but the one I have (not any of the devices discusses explicitly in this thread), the Atheros chipset USB devices require running the Windows driver that comes with the device via the ndis wrapper to get it to run on Linux.

This will generally require compiling the ndis kernel module, though depending on your kernel version, you MAY find someone has already compiled one for you.

For what it's worth, the powered antenna I started the thread with is completely OS neutral."

But I've decided to "book em Nano" ;)
(I must be gettin old)

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Computer for our boats