Geocaching, Garmin and Linux

I’m a Geocacher and I’ve bought a new toy, the Garmin Vista HCx. This device has a special function for Geocaching. You have to upload these files directly to the device. It isn’t possible to store them on the microSD.
On the geocaching.com you have an option to send the coordinates directly to the GPS. It downloads a web browser plugin from Garmin. To send the files (.loc or .gps) to the device on Linux there is a nice tool called gpsbabel. You can use it to send your files to the GPS. However the device supports only traditional caches 🙁

So a simple script named “sendCache” is:

#!/bin/bash
# sendCache
gpsbabel -i gpx -f $1 -o garmin -F usb:

You have to remove the kernel module which is loaded automatically:

rmmod garmin_gps

Or blacklist it in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. Simply add ‘blacklist garmin_gps’.

To get the permissions to work with gpsbabel as a user, you have to install a hal fdi file. Copy 80-gps.fdi to ‘/usr/share/hal/fdi/information/20thirdparty’. This will set acl rules for write access to the user if you attach it.