OT(ish) lunix based mapping and nav computers

[moose]

Following on from other thread (and not want to pollute that further ) about anti virus software which has got me thinking..

Is there any one here that uses a liunx base system for navigation?

as far at i can see there are only a few options of GPL sofware.

Two that i have started having a look at are "gps drive" and "viking".

The reason for looking at linux is the you can pick up very cheap second had netbooks (linux versions), in fact probably get 3 for the price of some old creaky tuffbook job.

these netbooks also have solid state drives and the linux os could be striped right down giving more rooms for maps etc...

There are i guess going to be some skilled IT people on the forum so i thought i would see what (or if) had been done.

[Ryan]

If you can wait until the New Year (he's on his way to Bulgaria at the mo), I'd try pinging TSD a PM. It's scary what he knows about stuff...

[calle-fas]

I find this most interesting, as I have been a Linux user for nearly ten years now, and not too eager to go back to anything else.

Linux has improved _a lot_ the last couple of years when it comes to supported hardware and the amount of great software keeps on growing.

[tweetyduck]

never converted myself but all the 3rd line guys use it on their desktops with windows as a virtual machine. If you get really stuck with something let me know as we have about 5 developers/engineers who may be able to help. I can ask if any use it for GPS. Be after Xmas though.

[Aragorn]

I suspect the big issue with linux is the open source side of things.

The mapping companies are like the bankers with their millions when it comes to giving any of it away for free.

I use it on quite a few machines, mostly in server context though. I used to run it on my old laptop, and i've never bothered with this one for no real reason other than lazyness!

Obviously the mapping firms could still release closed source mapping software for linux, but presumably they're milking enough from the current windows market to bother with what is in effect a very small market.

I suspect you'll see normal "turn by turn" sat nav style software make reasonably headway under linux, but memorymap type mapping with OS maps is such a niche i dont think it will appear for a while yet in any viable format, saying that however, GPS Drive does appear to be able to load different maps so maybe its the one to watch.

If the only reason your looking at it is due to CPU power, then i think your taking the wrong approach. Remeber when Windows XP was released the fastest CPU on the market was the very earliest P4's (which were REALLY SLOW) and the 1.2GHz P3's. You can buy machines for pennies on ebay that will happily run Windows XP, and you can even use something like XPLite to strip out unneeded guff and make it run even faster. Aim for a laptop based on the Pentium-M (NOT the P4-M) and you'll have plenty of grunt. Even the netbooks you mention that come with linux preinstalled would likely happily run XP.

[angusb]

I've run memory map on ubuntu quite well using WINE. It does mean you can use linux but as its running MM emulated you lose some speed compared to running it on windows. Having said that I never bother with antivirus software on my linux boxes which speeds things up a bit so its more or less equal. You obviously still have to pay for mm though .