August 20, 2024

Garmin 66i, USB, and Linux - 2024 - August

One again, the day after a hike I want to pull the track off of my 66i.

The process seems to be different every time I try this. I am hoping to figure out a reliable and repeatable way to do this without thrashing around and experimenting every time.

This time I begin with the 66i powered off. I use a high quality micro-USB cable, and plug into one of the lower USB ports on my linux desktop.

This works, but you have to be patient. Once I plug the cable in, the 66i screen lights up and transition to showing the USB icon, but then it powers off (and disconnects). But then it powers back on, once again showing the USB symbol on the screen. I just watch and wait, monitoring my linux log. Once it settles down and quits powering on and off, it stay powered on displaying the USB symbol on the screen and it has set itself up as a mass storage device, which linux has nicely mounted for me.

I give it several minutes to see if it will remain calm and let me do work. It seems content, so we will continue. Note that all we have had to do this time is connect a cable, and wait. This is progress.

Pulling files off

I click on the GARMIN icon (while it is still there) to ensure that linux does mount it, then I do this: 
cd /u1/Projects/Garmin/Files
make pull
cd Activities
ls -l *2024*
-rw-r--r-- 1 tom tom  21100 Feb 15  2024 '2024-02-15 15.31.06.fit'
-rw-r--r-- 1 tom tom  20977 Apr 16 07:52 '2024-04-16 14.52.30.fit'
-rw-r--r-- 1 tom tom 180877 May 17 10:54 '2024-05-17 17.54.39.fit'
-rw-r--r-- 1 tom tom  24216 May 28 11:16 '2024-05-28 18.16.39.fit'
-rw-r--r-- 1 tom tom  20731 Aug  7 09:25 '2024-08-07 16.25.39.fit'
-rw-r--r-- 1 tom tom  74851 Aug 19 14:13 '2024-08-19 21.13.07.fit'
The file I want is the last one listed above.

Working with this file

This could be improved and smoothed out, but the way I currently play the game is described here:
Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's backpacking pages / tom@mmto.org