[olug] Trying to connect a Garmin Legend to an eeePC

[Paul H. Lewis]

Rob Townley wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 12:17 AM, Paul H. Lewis <phldml3 at cox.net> wrote:
>   
>> I got a eeePC for Christmas and just love it.  In particular my wife
>> picked up a 701SD at Toys-R-Us.  Well, I enjoy geocaching and decided I
>> wanted to try and connect my Garmin Legend to the eeePC so I could log
>> in to the site will I was mobile.  Went to Best Buy the other day and
>> bought a Dynex USB to serial cable, since the Garmin cable only connects
>> to a 9 pin serial port.  Downloaded GPSMAN from the ASUS site,
>> configured the software and of course it didn't recognize the GPS.  So
>> I've scoured the web for 5 days now and I think I've mucked up my eeePC
>> more than I should have.
>>
>> I followed the instructions on this site:
>> http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:usbserial
>>
>> and have had no luck getting the eeePC to recognize the Garmin Legend
>> and now my eeePC will not automatically connect to my  wireless network
>> anymore.  I have to manual connect to the network and it takes the PC a
>> few minutes to accomplish the task.  I think the problem with the
>> network may lie in the replacement usbserial.ko file that I have
>> replace, but I'm not exactly sure how that could be.  Can someone advise?
>>
>> TIA,
>> Paul
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>>
>>     
>
> You remembered to set the serial baud, bits and parity correctly, right?
>
> For the price of some of those USB2serial adapters, it might be the
> same amount to get a USB / Bluetooth GPS Receiver.  The following is
> $45.00.  The big advantage to USB over serial is that the GPS can stay
> charged longer.  The disadvantage is that it might drain your eee
> batteries when you forget to disconnect.
> http://www.amazon.com/i-Trek-M7-i-Trek-Bluetooth-Receiver-Configurable/dp/B0013CHFK2
>
> Or a SDIO GPS card, or if the eee has pcmcia, or minipci?
>
> Just happened to come across a posting the other day on laptopgpsworld
> about GPS systems that work with both BlueTooth and USB.
> http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/laptop-gps-hardware/516-dual-usb-bluetooth-gps-receivers.html
>
> A few years back, i purchased a junky bluetooth gps receiver that
> powered itself via USB.  Spent days trying to get my machines to
> recognize it via USB.  Finally, called Tech Support - "You can't use
> the USB cable to get data, but you must use USB for power.  Can only
> use bluetooth for gps data."   Seemed like the dumbest design decision
> ever made.  i suppose they thought they were saving money by not
> having an extra UART?
>
>   
My eeePc doesn't have Bluetooth capabilities.  I couldn't find anywhere 
to configure the baud rate, etc. for the cable.  Is there suppose to be 
a config file for that?