Using the I-BLUE 747 with bt747

The application bt747 is a GPS control software for several GPS datalogger including the I-BLUE 747. It is an opensource program written in Java and it runs on Windows, Palm, WinCE, Linux and on the Mac.

Running Java programs on OpenSuse can tricky sometimes. "Regular" applications are fine but if you need to install Java extensions to which you do not find a supported OpenSuse package you might fail. I had to face this fact already on another occasion.

The solution is to take the plunge:

1. deinstall all java packages
   
2. install java from sun
   
3. install the needed Java extensions
   
4. download and install bt747
   

For bt747 I had to take this route on OpenSuse 11.0. Your mileage may vary, so just give it a go on your distro.

Installation instructions for OpenSuse 11.0

1. Deinstall all Java packages

rpm -qa | grep java | xargs rpm -e

2. Download the generic Java package from Sun

jre-6u7-linux-i586-rpm.bin

install the package (execute as root)

>sh jre-6u7-linux-i586-rpm.bin

3. Install the rxtx Java extension

RXTX is a native lib providing serial and parallel communication for the Java Development Toolkit.

rxtx-2.1-7-bins-r2.zip

The file INSTALL tells us what to do, so as root do this:

>cp rxtx-2.1-7-bins-r2/RXTXcomm.jar /usr/java/jre1.6.0_07/lib/ext/
>cp rxtx-2.1-7-bins-r2/Linux/i686-unknown-linux-gnu/librxtxSerial.so /usr/java/jre1.6.0_07/lib/i386/

The last thing you will have to do is to add the users that are supposed to use bt747 to the "uucp" group on your machine. This is supposedly needed to make lock files work.

On OpenSuse use yast2 to add users to the group.

4. Install bt747

Download the latest installation package from here.

Create a directory to hold the installation files, as the archive does not have subdirectories. I hate it when packagers do that...

>mkdir bt747
>cd bt747
>unzip /PATH/TO/BT747_1.XX_XX_full.zip

To start the application do this:

>sh run_j2se.sh

This script will start the new version of the application, which looks nice but has to be considered beta or even alpha at this moment.

>sh run_rxtx.sh

This script will start the older version which looks really awful but works well.

So much for now. Stay tuned to find out how to use bt747.

Cheers Juergen