Help with getting charts

[SLOOPERCAT]

The previous owner of my boat left me with an older laptop with UBUNTU and OpenCP. Both are new experiences for me. I can get into the OpenCP program and look at the charts he has previously loaded. Unfortunately none of them are relevant to the current boat location. It does have the external GPS which finds my current location. So it appears it all works.

My primary need is for the Tennessee river chain. When I go to find charts I am not able to find many and cannot load the ones I find. This laptop also has Firefox as the browser so the errors downloading charts may have to do with the browser settings or plugins or lack thereof.

If anyone could help me sort this out, I would truly appreciate the help.

[.Paul.]

The Tennessee river charts are produced by the US Army Corps of Engineers. OpenCPN has a chart downloader which will download the charts.



The Tennessee river charts are included in the "IENC U37 Product Catalog". I suggest that you download all of the charts in this catalog. That is easier than selecting the individual charts for just your part of the Tennessee.

Also, you should download the "IENC Buoy Products Catalog" This contains a single chart that overlays all of the river charts. The buoys are maintained by the US Coast Guard. After buoy positions or characteristics are changed by the Coast Guard, the single buoy overlay is updated by the Corps of Engineers. OpenCPN displays the buoy overlay and the IENC U37 charts as needed.

Read the OpenCPN User Manual for detailed instructions on using the Chart Downloader. Here is a link to the manual at OpenCPN.org

https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...pn_user_manual

Paul

[SLOOPERCAT]

I cannot get the chart tab display of the plugin that they are showing in the manual. I get something close by clicking on the toolbox, but the tabs are not all the same. Maybe I have an older version of the software?

[.Paul.]

If you have a tool bar with a wrench button, that is an older version. The version number can be found by selecting the help icon which is identified by a question mark. The latest version is 5.0.0.

What version are you using?

Paul

[SLOOPERCAT]

3.0.2. That explains why the instructions made no sense. I looked around and did not see any obvious way to get the latest version

[.Paul.]

Originally Posted by SLOOPERCAT

3.0.2. That explains why the instructions made no sense. I looked around and did not see any obvious way to get the latest version

Here is a link to the Downloads page at the official OpenCPN.org website:

https://opencpn.org/OpenCPN/info/downloadopencpn.html

Here is an instruction for Ubuntu from the downloads page:

For Ubuntu Linux and it's derivatives (Linux Mint) and Debian Jessie based distributions, OpenCPN is distributed from a PPA.
If you're not sure how to add the repository to your system, read the chapter Configuring Ubuntu PPA in the user manual.

The latest OpenCPN version is 5.0.x (x should be 0, but there are minor changes for some operating systems).

Unfortunately, I am not using Linux, and I cannot help you with the download of a newer version of OpenCPN.

Paul

[SLOOPERCAT]

I think I need someone to sit down and show me. The instructions for Ubuntu seem to be written by those who know too much. It's a bit of Greek to me.

[RedPhoenix]

Welcome, Slooper.

The good news, is that there are a few that speak geek here.

I'm on the other side of the planet, so it might be a bit hard to help you real-time, but if there's noone closer, I'm happy to assist.

Righto.. here's what you'll need before you kick off.
* Access to the computer.
- Sounds like the previous owner provided you with a username/password to log in.
- There's a chance that it automatically logs in for you. If that's the case, we'll still need a password for the stuff that'll come next. With a little luck, they either provided you with a 'root' password (equivalent to an 'Administrator' account), or better still, the account you currently have access to, will have special privileges to install software (this is more likely).
- Either way, grab any username/password records that came with the computer, and have 'em handy.

* Access to the internet.
- Is your laptop connected to the internet at the moment? If not, make it so.
- If you're not sure how to do that, yell out.

Now, updating software on Linux is both harder and easier than Windows. It's not as user friendly, but it's a hell of a lot simpler to make sure that packages aren't stomping all over each other, and creating crazy problems. There are some nice user-friendly graphical ways of doing stuff... but we're going to ignore them, and get down and dirty at the command line, since this isn't something you're likely to need to do every month.

So, once you're logged into your box, and have the internet available, you'll need to fire up something called a 'terminal'. This is a bit like a really advanced "DOS prompt" if you're old enough to remember stuff before windows 95.

Your laptop is running Ubuntu by the sounds of things - good; that'll make things a bit simpler.

Open the Dash by clicking the Ubuntu icon in the upper-left, type "terminal", and select the Terminal application from the results that appear.

That'll bring up a new window. Probably black with white writing (or the other way around). The terminal is a bit scary, but it's how you get into the guts of your computer.
At the moment it'll have some writing on it - something like "user@system:~$ " and a blinking cursor.

Righto.. here's what we're going to run:
sudo -s

Type that into your keyboard, and hit enter. It'll come back with something like this:
[sudo] password for user:

Type in your login password here. (it won't actually echo to the screen - it'll look like you're typing nothing - that's ok.. keep going and press enter at the end).

Your command prompt (assuming you got the password right), will change to this:
root@system:~#

If you don't get this, stop there, and post.

Type the following and press enter:
apt-get update

A whole BUNCH of stuff should appear on your screen after that. It'll look something like this:
root@system:~# apt-get update
Ign:1 Internode :: Residential :: Entertainment :: File Download Mirror :: Directory Listing tina InRelease
Hit:2 Internode :: Residential :: Entertainment :: File Download Mirror :: Directory Listing bionic InRelease
Hit:3 Internode :: Residential :: Entertainment :: File Download Mirror :: Directory Listing bionic-updates InRelease
Hit:4 Internode :: Residential :: Entertainment :: File Download Mirror :: Directory Listing bionic-backports InRelease
.... etc etc - the hostnames will be a bit different... but it'll look vaguely similar.

It should finish after maybe 20 seconds or so, depending on your internet speed, and eventually take you back to that prompt above: root@system:~# ('system' may be different - it'll use the name that has been assigned to your laptop).

Righto.. with a bit of luck, the previous owner installed opencpn via the normal process. If that's the case, give this a shot: (NOTE: Before you go further, there's a chance that your old plugins may not work any more until you reconfigure them. Since we're heading to winter in the northern hemisphere, I suspect you're not heading out on the water in a hurry, so that's probably ok..)

apt-get install opencpn

That might take a while to finish. It may ask you some questions along the way (probably something along the lines of "I need to install all this other stuff too - is that ok? (yes/no). Follow the bouncing ball. Post here if there are worries. You can shut down the computer at this point if you need to, and start from scratch again, if something is confusing.

It might take 10 minutes or so. Probably less with decent wifi.

At the end of the process though, with a little luck, you'll have an upgraded version of opencpn - probably version 5. Close the terminal, and opencpn should be available from your normal user-interface menu.

Now, there are a few things that could go wrong along the way.
* The previous owner could have installed opencpn using a different method.
* We may have to add a different software repository
* Your user/password might not have the right access.

If you encounter problems along the way, stop, update here, and we'll see what we can do. If you have someone closer who can help, feel free to grab them, and ignore everything above.

Red.

[fgd3]

All good information, but keep in mind that his older laptop may not be able to run recent versions of Ubuntu. I ran into that problem. Instead of telling him how to update his software--which might be beyond the capabilities of his computer--just explain where to download the charts he needs manually and where to put them in his file structure so OpenCPN can find them.


Start here in your search for Inland ENCs:
https://www.agc.army.mil/Missions/Echarts/


Follow the "Produce Downloads" link followed by the "Charts Download/S57" link. You'll find a link to download all 107 charts: "Click here if you want to download all 107 IENCs into one zipped file."


I have a Charts directory which contains sub directories for NOAA RNCs, NOAA ENCs, and USACE IENCs 2.2. It helps me manage the chart files from various sources. OpenCPN is pointed at the Charts directory and automatically finds everything in the sub directories.



Fabbian

[SLOOPERCAT]

Yes Fabian, I am stuck on version 12 of Ubuntu, 12.0.3 I believe. It's also a 32 bit machine. So I found the charts. I deleted my current version of OpenCPN and followed the instructions for getting V5. When I go to my software load screen it finds all the plugins and adds for CPN, but a big question mark for the software. So I now need to find which version of CPN I can run and how to get it.

[RedPhoenix]

Originally Posted by fgd3

All good information, but keep in mind that his older laptop may not be able to run recent versions of Ubuntu. I ran into that problem. Instead of telling him how to update his software--which might be beyond the capabilities of his computer--just explain where to download the charts he needs manually and where to put them in his file structure so OpenCPN can find them

Glad you could assist, Fabian.

However, the process outlined above won't update the operating system - just openCPN. The OS will stay the same.

The charts, I'm unfamiliar with, and I'm glad someone else can help - but the question about updating openCPN on Ubuntu? Yep, I can help with that one.

[SLOOPERCAT]

Thanks guys, unless I get a version of CPN that works with this ancient laptop, I may just call it a day. For where I go currently, my IPhone and IPad suffice. I just have an aversion to walking away from a problem that I know must be solvable. Just ask my GF.

[fgd3]

The problem with trying to update OpenCPN without updating the operating system is that there is no available OpenCPN version compatible with Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, which is probably what SLOOPERCAT has. With Windows a single executable is compatible with a wide variety of operating system versions. With Ubuntu you need a package compiled for your version of the operating system.


Had SLOOPERCAT not deleted his old OpenCPN version all he would have had to do is download the charts into the proper directory. With the version of OpenCPN which was compatible with his operating system gone and no compatible packages available for download I think the only option is to compile from source, something I've never looked into, though I see lots of messages on this board where people who tried are asking for help.


Fabbian

[SLOOPERCAT]

If I loaded Windows XP back onto this relic. Could I get CPN to load and function? Ubuntu seems worthless now that it will not support any further updates.

[Tupaia]

Yes, it should work fine with Win XP or Win 7.