3. Quickstart guide

3.1. Basics

This page aims to point out the most common options which a first-time user may want to change - power users may want to consult the Advanced Options.

Setting up Navit is done by editing a configuration file called “navit.xml”.

Editing XML configurations files in a text editor is simple, they are just plain text XML files, that can be edited with any editor. Just remember to ‘’turn off ‘save UTF8 byte mark’ in Preferences’’ or navit may complain very much on the first byte of the file.

Hint

If you are unfamiliar with XML files you can take a look at Learn XML in Y minutes

The Navit Configuration XML is splitted into sections with this hierarchy:

<config>
        <plugins></plugins>
        <navit>
                <osd></osd>
                <vehicle></vehicle>
                <vehicleprofile></vehicleprofile>
                <mapset></mapset>
                <layout></layout>
        </navit>
</config>

Navit comes shipped with a default navit.xml together with navit_layout_*.xml files that are stored at various locations (depending on your system).

For Linux-like OSes:

in ~/.navit/: e.g: /home/myusername/.navit/navit.xml (This is probably to best place to customize your settings!)
in /usr/share/navit or /etc/navit

Navit will apply settings in the following order:

in the current directory (used on Windows)
location supplied as first argument on the command line, e.g.: navit /home/myusername/navittestconfig.xml
in the current directory as navit.xml.local (Used mainly for development)
in the system configuration-directory

Note

In any case, you have to adapt settings to your system! This includes especially GPS, map provider and vehicle.

3.1.1. Preparation

3.1.1.1. Get a supported map package

Navit can use different Maps formats, including free OpenStreetMap data. In order to use one of these maps, download a map of your desired area and store it into a local folder (such as navit/maps or /usr/share/navit/maps).

3.1.1.2. Install TTS

To get speech support, you need to install a text-to-speech tool such as espeak, mbrola or festival. These tools can be invoked from the command line. Test your setup by invoking the tools manually e.g.

espeak "This is a text!"

On some systems Navit comes with integrated espeak support, so you don’t need to download it separately.

3.1.1.3. Connect GPS

Now connect your GPS. The exact procedure for this varies depending on the type of GPS device you are using and how you connect it to your computer. On Linux / Unix systems, your GPS should typically show up as a character device, i.e., you will find an entry in the /dev folder corresponding to your GPS device. Again, the file name depends on the type and connection method of your GPS receiver. See [[Connecting a GPS receiver]] for details.

Most GPS receiver will output the position in [[NMEA]] format, which can be used directly in Navit or using a GPS daemon program such as gpsd. A simple way to test whether your GPS receiver works and outputs NMEA data is to dump its output to a console. For example, if your GPS receiver can be found at /dev/rfcomm0, you can dump its output using

cat /dev/rfcomm0

The output should give you steady NMEA position updates. You can feed this information into gpsd / xgps or QLandkarte to see a graphical representation of your position and to check whether the output corresponds to your current position.

3.1.2. Basic Configuration

Currently Navit doesn’t provide a graphical tool to change settings, so you have to do the changes manually using a texteditor. Please open your current navit.xml file and do the following steps:

3.1.2.1. Setup proper startup-position

On Navit’s very first startup, it needs a center to look at on the map. By default this is set to Munich in Germany (at latitude 48.08 and longitude, which is conveniently covered by the sample map created on installation).

<navit center="4808 N 1134 E" />

See furthermore: General Options

3.1.2.2. Setup GPS

Add the GPS connection

<vehicle name="My" enabled="yes" source="file://dev/ttyS0" active="1"/>

See furthermore: Vehicle Options

3.1.2.3. Enable Map

Just change the map entry corresponding to your local folders

<map type="binfile" enabled="yes" data="/var/navit/maps/uk.bin" />

3.1.3. Advanced Configuration

After those first setup ther is probably a lot more you night wanne tinker with. There are many more options, including debugging, specific plugins, speech announcements, trip logging, …