[Pan-users] Serendipity : You may all laugh

[Beartooth]

        Background : my chief offline activity is squirreling, in the 
course of which I do a lot of mapping with GPSs -- and have always had to 
keep some form of M$ around, in order to be able to get my hardware to 
talk to the topo map software I do the mapping with. (Wine can finally 
install, launch, and run some of it; but it can't manage to get it to 
talk with my GPSs.)

        I have of course also watched all the linux-native topo map 
software I know of -- for over ten years -- hoping for one to reach a 
state of user-friendliness where those of us without degrees in CS, 
cartography, and EE can use them.

        Current project is trying to learn to handle a suite called 
Qlandkarte -- with obliging help from the developers, even.

        Suddenly I thought to look into permissions in that -- because of 
the state of things here, of course. Sure enough, there was one of those 
blasted padlocks. I ran a chown command, and re-launched the program.

        Lo and behold!, it downloaded the list of waypoints from my GPS. 
Now I just have to download some topo maps into it; if that works, too, I 
can have an M$-free house again -- thanks to youss great guyss. Whooda 
thunkkit?
-- 
Beartooth Squirreler
Delenda est MegaSleazo!