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Marine Nav program OpenCPN
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05-14-2024, 08:43 AM
With NOAA discontinuing RASTOR charts and converting to VECTOR charts I am converting to OpenCPN navigation software. There is a add-on package to perform SAR search patterns but I am having difficulty installing it. Hope to find someone who can help. Roger Haynes
05-14-2024, 11:59 AM
I am not familiar with that program but will offer a couple of comments. What distro are you using and how is OpenCPN installed (i.e., as a native app or a Flatpak)? I prefer native apps (there is a PPA for Ubuntu and Debian but it appears only Flatpak is available for Fedora). I'm not sure how plugins interact with Flatpak, but it should be possible to install the SAR plugin if that is what you are using. If the program is installed on a laptop, you could bring it to the next meeting and we could take a look at it.
While not the same as navigation charts, I access weather maps at the following links that may be of use. https://radar.weather.gov/ https://aviationweather.gov/gfa/?tab=obs...rdecoded=1 -Steve (05-14-2024, 11:59 AM)steve Wrote: I am not familiar with that program but will offer a couple of comments. What distro are you using and how is OpenCPN installed (i.e., as a native app or a Flatpak)? I prefer native apps (there is a PPA for Ubuntu and Debian but it appears only Flatpak is available for Fedora). I'm not sure how plugins interact with Flatpak, but it should be possible to install the SAR plugin if that is what you are using. If the program is installed on a laptop, you could bring it to the next meeting and we could take a look at it. Hello Steve. I use Mint and the install is native. I planned to bring it to the meeting yesterday but my wife was ill and I had to skip it. https://opencpn.org/OpenCPN/info/downloadplugins.html has numerous plugins for OpenCPN. Scroll down to the bottom for SAR. It says for versions 5.2 and up (I am using 5.6), use the new built in Plug-in Manager to install SAR. All the SAR plugins I have located say ubuntu or debian (numerous versions) which are identified as "incompatible" when I try to install. I've shelved this until I can bring my system in and show it. I appreciate your time. Roger
05-20-2024, 08:13 PM
I was able to install the OpenCPN application and the SAR (Search and Rescue) plugin on my test machine. I am running Linux Mint 21 (MATE), so it should be possible on yours since Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. What is your version? Did you add the PPA repository?
I followed the instructions to add the Ubuntu PPA from a terminal (command line) window: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:opencpn/opencpn sudo apt update and then: sudo apt install opencpn and it installed the latest version (5.8.4) along with several other libraries (12 packages in all). It should also show up in the Software or Package Manager (I use Synaptic). Once in the program I went to settings (Options), selected Plugins and then Update Plugin Catalog: master, after which the SAR plugin was listed. I selected it and then clicked on Install after which it said sar v4.0.0 successfullly installed. I had to close and restart the program and then the SAR plugin showed up in the toolbar. Maybe you need to do an update but everything worked for me. Let us know if you need more assistance or feel free to bring it to the next meeting. Good luck! -Steve
05-21-2024, 07:56 PM
(05-20-2024, 08:13 PM)Never heard of a PPA repository. Repeated your terminal commands and now a whole list of plugins appears and the SAR installation worked as advertised.Thanks for the help. I will try to make the June meeting and learn how you knew about and what are/is PPA.Rogersteve Wrote: I was able to install the OpenCPN application and the SAR (Search and Rescue) plugin on my test machine. I am running Linux Mint 21 (MATE), so it should be possible on yours since Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. What is your version? Did you add the PPA repository?
05-22-2024, 11:51 AM
A PPA is a 'Personal Package Archive' which is a supplemental repository that can be added to the normal repositories included in Ubuntu or an Ubuntu-based distro (i.e., Linux Mint, Zorin, and in some cases Debian). PPAs are generally hosted on launchpad.net, a site supported by Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) where anyone can post updated packages or packages that are not included in the default Ubuntu repositories. As such, they are not vetted like normal packages and you need to trust the person(s) posting them. In this instance, the OpenCPN PPA is supported by the development team behind OpenCPN, so I deemed it trustworthy. The terminal commands I listed added the PPA repository to your list of repositories used by apt to install and update programs. As mentioned, PPAs are a way to access updated packages or packages that are not available in the normal repositories and are an alternative to downloading source code and compiling it yourself. I talked about PPAs a few months ago, but you may not have been at that meeting. See the following for more info on PPAs:
https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA https://itsfoss.com/ppa-guide/ It turns out it may not have been necessary to go the PPA route to get OpenCPN working for you. I first looked for OpenCPN in the repositories from an older system I am still using (Linux Mint 19.3 based on Ubuntu 18.04 which is End of Life) and it was not in the repository for that version. I simply followed the instructions given by OpenCPN to install the application in Ubuntu by using the OpenCPN PPA. However, OpenCPN does appear to be included in the repositories of newer versions of Ubuntu (and hence Linux Mint), which is why I asked what version you were using. It should have been possible to simply check for updates and then follow the steps for adding the SAR plugin. In this instance, it did no harm to add the PPA because it gave you access to the most recent version of OpenCPN (5.8.4 vs. the 5.6 you said you were using). Additionally, it allowed you to add the desired plugin without issues, so all is well. -Steve |
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