So, you assume and have not cheched it, but …
Has anyone contacted the developers to see if they would be willing to port their software to the librem 5? If they are a smaller startup of whatnot it might be worth their while to put in the effort.
Forgive me for not doing one more search while on the phone.
OSM Scout Server is a native offline maps provider. This server can be used as a drop-in replacement for online map services providing map tiles, search, and routing. As a result, together with the map client, a full offline solution is available for map search and navigation (car, bicycle, and walking).
The server can be used to provide:
map tiles for other applications;
search for locations and free text search;
search for POIs next to a reference;
calculate the route between two or more locations.
You will be able to get offline maps and associated functionality by having Pure Maps and OSM Scout Server installed on the same device. In this case, the server handles map storage, for example. Planet is not split into 20x20km sections, but larger regions, with the list of regions at https://github.com/rinigus/osmscout-server/tree/master/scripts/import/hierarchy .
You can test all already on desktop Linux (assuming that you don’t own Sailfish OS device) by installing OSM Scout Server and Pure Maps from Flathub. On desktop, start the server first, configure it (mainly state where you want to keep maps and few other options in the wizard), get maps and then start Pure Maps. To access all in offline mode, select offline mode in Pure Maps and you will be accessing maps from the server. Testing is limited if you don’t have it on mobile (with GPS), unfortunately. We use it on Sailfish in practice.
Server users’ guide is at https://rinigus.github.io/osmscout-server/en/
If you find an issue which is not filed, do so at Github. You are welcome to join and participate in development as well.
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Thanks for your hints, rinigus. Do both run for doing tests also on FreeBSD or do I have to setup a Vbox with which OS?
Good question! I don’t expect FreeBSD to support Flatpak, but I can be wrong.
For simplicity, I would suggest to setup virtual box with any of the linux’es supporting flatpak. For reference, see https://flatpak.org/setup/ , you could add PureOS to these as well.
Main issue with running it natively would be installation of all the dependencies. I would expect something around 10 libs that are needed on the top of the “standard” ones available in the distribution.
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Hello, it is already asked :
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How about Gnome Maps? The Librem 5 phone uses Gnome Apps.
Furthermore, on the issue of looking up street names etc. Open Street Map has a project called Nominatim. Nominatim does provide a lookup functionality for street names etc.
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Gnome Maps has the potential, interface-wise. My concern would be crashing, voice prompts, and so on. I had regular Gnome Maps crashes when running PureOS and Debian, unfortunately. I do admit, I never bothered to track them down.
The problem is not the app but the maps. I much prefer a stand alone navigator because I do not want to reveal my position to Snoople and all other disgusting snoopers. The maps of TomTom are useless because they have not all addresses in Swedish (Finland is a bilingual country). Nokia had very good maps but they are not of the same quality in Here. Now I use Garmin which is tolerable but there are some strange behaviours (maybe in the algorithms). Open Street Maps unfortunately also has problems with street names in Swedish.
Updating maps (with correct speed limits) seems to be a big problem in all navigators.
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If Gnome Maps could use the GPS to show your current position then it could at least be minimally useful.
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If the correct speed limits are visible after six months of actual change this means that all of the involved parties (authorities) provided needed change to the map provider on timely and on regular bases (what is important for general traffic safety). Therefore being tolerant with regular (speed limit) updates may be needed. Garmin is doing well … and its address book is finding newly built urban streets easily … Snooper is maybe good for UK but for the rest of Europe I was disappointed with its much too late address book updates (house numbers inclusive). Snooper (one option) routing philosophy was also frequently questionable.
And if you are only using navigation device with TMC support (analog-radio) there are always unnecessary hours lost somewhere on the road. Another Snoople free (and quality) solution is Garmin GTM 70™ Digital Traffic Receiver (GTM 60™ HD Digital Traffic Receiver for US).
I have learnt not to rely on the navigator for speed limit. We now have limit signs (displays) which are updated by remote control in real time. This is needed in winter when road conditions can change rapidly. But the navigators speed alarm is a nice help anyway. Next step is updating navigators in real time but it is not here yet and I think some kind of international standard is needed.
Navigation is an important feature to me but I would like read-only maps and traffic information with no feedback because uploading information from my unit helps all the snoopers. I do not trust them at all whatever they say. On my Android “places” is almost always off which means it cannot be used very well for navigation.
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If you want offline maps, scroll up a few posts. That’s send to be available already.
So, no revealing of position by that means.
yes and no: it can get the data from satellites but that is slow. getting them faster is possible via a different line: the internet. supl and xtra come to mind here.
no, it’s not about angle but distances. you can’t know the angle to that satellite once measuring the time it takes for the signal. the only thing you know is the distance from the given position of the sat. this is called Multilateration
once either you know the position of the tower (which sends an id which correlates to the position) or the tower sends its position (a feature that is quite seldom enabled in the network by the operator). anyway you can use anything in the air that correlates to a position: wifi hotspots, bt beacons, whatsoever… this is sometimes even more accurate than GNSS
Yes (in my experience) and therefore we need as decent as possible open source navigation application (routing in road networks, etc.) relaying on just fine single-frequency GNSS positioning data from GPS, Galilelo, Glonass, BeiDou and QZSS received on Librem 5 by the measurement engine positioning receiver Teseo LIV3F even when cellular modem HKS Off. In the future Purism may built its next phone with one from multi-band Teseo ASIL Precise Positioning (TeseoAPP) family of chips (please skim Notes for Editors under the given link) but for now I think this is the only option we need. Another dual-frequency positioning receivers are Broadcom® BCM47755 and two Allystar Technology Co. Ltd. HD8040 series chips. Smartphones with Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 855 also claim dual-frequency support but Location Granularity might be something of concern.
Until now I use Osmand. I like it a lot. I paired it with brouter to have an alternative to the build in routing for bikes and made a profile that fits my needs for planning routes for road bike tours.
I tried alternatives mentioned here on my desktop in preparation to using them on my Librem5 when it arrives and before testing them in mobian on a pinephone.
I’d expect the following features
- using maps and routing completely offline with an option for bike routing (would be o.k. to have an option to avoid e.g. highways)
- setting multiple waypoints to plan a round course
- insert points where I do not like the proposed routing
- block roads (running into unexpected road constructions)
I didn’t find a single project that would offer most or all of them.
Is there any progress I missed to have a software like Osmand for (mobile) linux?
I searched some more and found that it is possible to use brouter offline in linux using a web-interface which can be tested here.
The solution to plan trips looks perfect for me. The resulting routes can be exported using different formats.
Now the app would be missing that can follow the prepared route. @rinigus, is there such a feature planned for Pure Maps?
Maybe it could all fit together:
- brouter-web to have an interface for planning
- brouter as a backend for brouter-web (as I understand it would be optional if brouter-web could use osmscout-server as a routing backend)
- osmscout-server would provide the OpenStreetMap data
- Pure Maps could be the application to use on the road - as it is or using a pre-planned route from brouter-web
Open questions: Can all the needed service be run on a Librem5 or Pinephone or do they need to much ressources? If there’s a chance that the above works, I’d configure it on PureOS on my notebook as a first step and have a look at the ressources it uses.
Pure Maps does support routing via prepared GPX. GPX can be either user as it is, or can be processed by Valhalla router which will detect the used streets/paths and will give also routing instructions (turn left in 100m and similar). To use it, open routing in Pure Maps and select GPX or GPX Smart as a router (works in all profiles, online/offline/mixed).
I don’t know much about brouter. As for resources, OSM Scout Server and Pure Maps work on devices with 2GB RAM and some even use on device with 1GB RAM (Jolla1). L5 should be fine in this respect.
Valhalla, the router used by OSM Scout Server, does support bike routing. It also supports elevation data, but I don’t distribute it (yet?) with OSM Scout Server maps as it is rather large. In this respect, I don’t know what extra does brouter provide.
If you wish to use one more router on device offline then you will have to get maps for that as well. So, that would have to be considered.
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