This post outlines how one can install and configure Navit. I used this post and the Navit wiki as a reference for my installation and setup.
I first tried to install Navit from the Ubuntu repositories, but I couldn’t get Navit 0.2.0 (Ubuntu 11.04) to work with the maps I downloaded at Navit Planet Extractor (Warning: map_binfile:map_binfile_open:invalid file format
). I opted to install from source (version 0.5.0… at the time of this post).
First, I needed to install the dependencies on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config
automake libglib2.0-dev libtiff4-dev libtool
libxmu-dev libfribidi-dev gettext zlib1g-dev cvs gpsd
gpsd-clients libgps-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev
libgtk2.0-dev freeglut3-dev glutg3-dev
libcegui-mk2-dev libdevil-dev libglc-dev libpcre3-dev
libmng-dev libfreeimage-dev gettext autopoint
Then I compiled and installed like usual:
svn co https://navit.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/navit/trunk/navit/ navit
cd navit
./autogen.sh && ./configure && make
sudo make install
Configuring Navit was hard:
## in svn directory still
mkdir ~/.navit
cp navit/navit.xml ~/navit.xml
mkdir -P ~/Downloads/NavitMaps
cd ~/Downloads/NavitMaps
wget http://maps.navit-project.org/planet.bin ## 6+ GB
## go to http://maps3.navit-project.org/ and select the N and S America region and download as: americas.bin
Now edit ~/.navit/navit.xml
:
## disable the default mapset and add:
## change center to:
## coordinates are multiplied by 100: 33.76 is 3376
## enable GUI
The app isn’t perfect yet (maybe because not everything is fully documented so I don’t know how to set things up). Using my setup, we can at least enter in an address and view the map from there. READ this because it documents some issues that are currently present. For example, since you cannot enter the state (e.g., California) you are interested, if multiple cities in a country share the same name, then keep on pressing “map” for each possible choice until you get the one you are looking for.
To get routes between two location, first search for your current position. Click “map” to see it on the map. Right click a point and select “Set as position”. Repeat for your destination but select instead “Set as destination” or click on “Destination” in the search box.
These two features should suffice for now.