Linux support for TomTom Home

[isprins]

I contacted tomtom because i feel that it is somewhat weird that tomtoms's GPS/navigation runs Linux, but the only software that exists are for mac or window$. It is called Tomtom Home.

(translated from Norwegian)

Customer (XXXXXXX) 09/17/2008 03:05 PM
I am not complaining, or bashing. However I would respectfully request you please begin Linux support for TomTom Home. I can't seem to run it in Wine, or in windows emulators. I understand TomTom's themselves are Linux based. Myself, I run Ubuntu Linux. With the dissatisfaction of Vista, XP becoming obsolete, and the price of either of them being inhibitive(and ridiculous); Linux is gaining popularity as a mainstream operating system. Ubuntu Linux especially since it is free, and has excellent support via web based forums. Once again, would you please consider creating a Linux distribution of TomTom home. If you need any help or advice please feel free to contact the thousands of programmers at
http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php

Their answer:
Dear costumer

Thanks for getting in touch with us

TomTom gets more and more inquiry's if there will be made a TomTom HOME version for Linux soon. It is not currently planned, but they are open to it if enough users wants a Linux version.

TomTom HOME runs under wine, but it cannot detect the device.
What kind of emulators have you tried?

Please encourage more Linux users to notify us that a TomTom HOME version should be made. My colleges here at TomTom relays the inquiry's to me and i will relay them to the management and try to convince them that it is not good costumer support to ignore Linux users because more and more are switching to Linux.

With regards,
Tomtom User support.


My answer:


I have tried Wine, and it does not detect the device.
I am told that it works good with VirtualBox running XP, but whats the point of running Linux then.

---------

I have posted this at:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3097595.0
and news..

alt.os.linux.ubuntu
alt.satellite.gps
alt.satellite.gps.tomtom
alt.comp.linux
alt.os.linux.ubuntu

[bwhite82]

I too find it outrageous that a device that runs Linux does not provide an application that interfaces with the device on Linux. I'm no developer (and as such I could be wrong), but it couldn't be too hard to port this to Linux given the following:

(From http://adblockplus.org/blog/tomtom-home-and-add-ons)

As some might know, I am a developer in the team behind TomTom HOME, an application that allows users to manage their TomTom navigator devices (e.g. installing new content on them, sharing it with other users or doing backups).

TomTom HOME is based on XULRunner, it runs basically on the same code as Firefox. This has many advantages for us, amongst others — support for add-ons comes with the platform, almost for free...

Additionally, when I explore the installation folder of the application in Vista, I can see a whole lot of .jar files. Java runs natively in Linux...

[-Zeus-]

I have a TomTom and I will send in a support request myself.

[mdbarton]

I've also submitted a support request along the same sort of lines (081002-001384)

I am not complaining, or bashing. However I would respectfully request you please begin Linux support for TomTom Home. At the moment I have to boot Windows XP to run TomTom Home (but that doesn't work either! see 081002-000852). I have tried TomTom Home under Wine but it does not detect the device.

I understand TomTom's themselves are Linux based. Myself, I run Ubuntu Linux. With the dissatisfaction of Vista, XP becoming obsolete, and the price of either of them being inhibitive(and ridiculous); Linux is gaining popularity as a mainstream operating system. There are many new 'netbook' devices coming to the market that run Linux, not Windows, out of the box.

Would you please consider creating a Linux distribution of TomTom home. If you need any help or advice please feel free to contact the thousands of programmers at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=924794

(TomTom Home on Windows XP does not seem to see me device either!)

Hope this helps, and I encourage others with TomTom accounts to submit similar support requests.

[mdbarton]

and got this as an answer:

Thank you for contacting TomTom Customer Support.

We would like to thank you for your feedback regarding TomTOm Home compatability.

At TomTom we take all customer comments, feedback and suggestions seriously and therefore we have passed your comments on to our 2nd Line team, Product Management and Marketing Team.


With Best Regards,

The TomTom Customer Support Team

Which is better than an all out no!

[fluffman86]

I requested a Linux version from TomTom USA back in May. They didn't sound nearly as hopeful as TomTom Norway, but they did seem somewhat interested.

I'm hopeful that they'll do something soon. I pointed them to picasa as a great example of free (as in beer, not speech) software that was designed for linux but works well under wine. I don't even care that much about the HOME software...I would just like to download the updated maps in a file and unzip them to my GO which shows up as a removable device.

What bothers me about it is that when I bought my TomTom online I checked out the TomTom website to find which one I wanted before purchasing on eBay. *NOWHERE* was anything listed about needing software to upgrade the TomTom. I assumed it would either pick up a cell signal (like the Kindle?) or plug up to the computer and extract new maps, or possibly even be web-based,which would all be platform independent.

It would really be trivial for them to just upgrade the Home software to detect the device as a hard drive instead of some other crap...especially since (as I said) Ubuntu already recognizes it as a removable device.

[taladan]

Ya know, I've got a TomTom and I've never even tried to hook it up to my linux box...just assumed that it was probably unsupported. I think (if I can remember to tomorrow) I'll put in a support request for it. Can't hurt, might help.

Thanks for the heads up on this.

Tal

[laemt]

I tried to use wine for tomtom home and got an error...

fixme:actctx****_depend_manifests Could not find dependent assembly L"Microsoft.VC80.CRT"
err:module:import_dll Library MSVCR80.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\windows\\temp\\nsp627.tmp\\UAC.dll") not found

How do I fix this?

[laemt]

Ok i put MSVCR80 in the system32 file. now getting.

fixme:actctx****_depend_manifests Could not find dependent assembly L"Microsoft.VC80.CRT"

Any ideas?

[paintbalforjesus]

I also sent a message to tomtom asking them to support linux, maybe we can get them to support it and not worry about trying wine, since that apparently doesn't work.

As far as your error laemt I don't know how to fix that, but it appears from others posts that even if you do get it fixed and get tomtom home running in wine you still won't be able to connect it to your device, so it will be quite useless.