Datalogger 2.5 and the I-Blue 747 under wine

The I-Blue 747 GPS data logger is recognized as a serial device only and not as a USB mass storage device. Therefore the GPS data can not be accessed directly on the device. One way to get to the GPS data is via the datalogger software that comes with the device.

The software comes on a mini CD in the device package or can be downloaded from the transcend website.

Follow the following steps to install the software on your linux box:

1. Make sure that you have installed wine on your system. Please refer to your distro documentation to find out how to do this. For OpenSuse

>zypper install wine
executed as root will do the trick. Personally I do use the latest wine from cvs (version 1.1.3) provided by the OpenSuse build service on a daily basis.

2. Unzip the TsiSetup.zip archive

>cd path/to/downloaded/file >unzip TsiSetup.zip

3. Install the software

>cd TsiSetup
> wine DataLog.exe


4. Prepare wine for the new serial device

Connect the I-Blue 747 to a USB port using the provided USB mini cable. If you use a recent distro the device will be automatically detected, the appropriate kernel module (cp2101) will be loaded and a new serial device be created (/dev/ttyUSB0):

>dmesg
hub 2-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 4                        
usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2              
usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice                               
usb 3-2: New USB device found, idVendor=10c4, idProduct=ea60                 
usb 3-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3            
usb 3-2: Product: CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller                       
usb 3-2: Manufacturer: Silicon Labs                                          
usb 3-2: SerialNumber: 0001                                                  
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial                           
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for generic   
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic                   
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core                      
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for cp2101    
cp2101 3-2:1.0: cp2101 converter detected                                    
usb 3-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2            
usb 3-2: cp2101 converter now attached to ttyUSB0                            
usbcore: registered new interface driver cp2101                              
drivers/usb/serial/cp2101.c: Silicon Labs CP2101/CP2102 RS232 serial adaptor driver v0.07                    

Your wine setup is not aware of the new serial device, as the four serial ports com1 to com4 are connected to /dev/ttyS0 to /dev/ttyS3. You will have to remove one of the existing links and add a new one pointing to /dev/ttyUSB0:

>cd ~/.wine/dosdevices >rm -rf com2 >ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 com2

Use one of the com ports don't matter which one. Pick one you don't use for anything else...

5. Start the application

Switch the device switch to the log position. And then start the datalogger application:

wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/LogTool/DataLog/DataLog.exe

You will be presented with a "Configuration" tab in which you will have to choose the com port you connected the /dev/ttyUSB0 to from the drop down list:



In my example that would be "com2". Click the "Connect" button to let the software talk to the device:

Under the menu entries on the left you can setup the device. You can specify GPS data to be stored, data formats, Save intervals and methods, and the like.

Under the "Satellite Information" tab you will be able to access the current inforamtion the device is currently pulling from the connected satellites:


As nice as all this is, the application under wine has one rather significant drawback. You can not get to your stored GPS data. Whenever I try to access any data on the device using the datalogger under wine, I miserably failed. The download window pops up and stays there until I kill the whole application using xkill. There was a report on how to use the applcaiton udner wine which is no longer available.

So if anybody is using the datalogger app under wine successfully. I would be happy to receive some pointers on what step you took to make this work.