[Ubuntu-be] Garmin&GPS Was:Re: gps-cartography

[YP]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2007 at 09:52:41PM +0200, Peter Stuart wrote:
> i made a report on the
> acquisition of tom-tom by tele-atlas.
> a month or so ago.
> 
> the advantage in this would be that the
> users could update information on the spot,
> as geographics don't change much, but traffic
> situations do.
> 
> apparently tom-tom might get open source
> towards the cartographers.
> it would benefit them, and the users.
 
If you're talking about the OpenTom.org project, this is totally independent
of TomTom himself since they are not giving any information about their 
protocols and products, except that they work under Gnu/Linux, but the 
soft on board is TomTom's non open software. 

Personally, we bought a Garmin Streetpilot c510 gps, and this week we
already discovered that some street numbers in Gent had changed (new
building), and now we absolutely ignore how we could update it from our
Ubuntu PC: btw this will not be so easy since Garmin.be / Fromar.be 
(importer) themselve advised us to use Garmin maps, and it seems we are
the first users of Linux here while the update softs online are all for
Windows.

So how should we update on a safe way without damaging something (it is 
btw new & under warranty)? 
I have no confidence in all these alternate maps and so since we are lambda
users, not spcialized in open source maps for gps.

Y P 

PS: we exactly choosed for Garmin due to the informations above concerning
Tomtom. I wrote exactly the opposite info posted by someone who believed
that Tomtom was a good choice since it runs under Gnu/Linux.
I'm afraid there aren't still good choices as long as the manufacture
himself doesn't provide update bins or so for Gnu/Linux.