Since I began boating I've wanted to know where I am at all times. It's important so I know the depth of water around me so there's no embarrassment of running aground. I've been using computers for a while and prefer using my Mac or Linux computer and thought it would be a great idea to use my Asus Netbook as a chart plotter. After much searching on the web I found OpenCPN. I initially found good info about it on the Sailnet and Cruisers Forum. The project is Open Source and seems well supported and is under development.
Installation:
To install I went to the SourceForge Website and downloaded the .deb file since I'm running Ubuntu on my Netbook. Note that this method of installation works only for Ubuntu.
I opened the terminal and tried to install the package:
sudo dpkg -i opencpn_1.3.4_i386.deb
An error was returned saying an unmet dependancy needed installation so then I installed libwtxgtk2.8-0:
sudo apt-get install libwtxgtk2.8-0
Then I tried installing the package again:
sudo dpkg -i opencpn_1.3.4_i386.deb
Success!
Then I opened the program and it didn't have any charts loaded so I downloaded them from the NOAA website. I navigated to the west coast and chose "Download RNC" from the right side and then chose "OK" on the next website. I unzipped the files to my home folder.
Next, I opened the "Toolbox" by clicking on the wrench icon. At first I found it tricky to get the "Charts" tab to open. It requires a quick double click action. Then I selected the charts directory and it sucked all the charts up and I was ready to go!
It took about a half hour to get everything installed and I'm happy it's working now!
Next I have to get back home to my boat and plug in my GPS Receiver, a DeLorme Earthmate GPS LT-40. I've researched online and there is kernel support so all I should need to do is plug it in, start the computer, check dmesg and find the line about which device I should tell OpenCPN to look for the GPS input on. It'll probably be something like /dev/ttyUSB0. More on that later!
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