Garmin Connect on Linux
I have been wishing for Garmin to support Linux with their Communicator Plugin for quite some time. In fact, I have even considered writing the firefox plugin to enable Linux support several times, but just haven’t been able to find the time to do it, plus maintain it, etc. So I have been using Garmin Connect in a virtual windows machine. It has been painful, but the other options were even less appealing to me.
Yesterday, however, while looking into adding Garmin Communicator support into Routometer, I did yet another Google search to see if someone else had written a Linux plugin, and what do you know, but YES. Check it out at Linux Garmin Communicator Plugin.
I tested it out. Fortunately it supports my watch, the Forerunner 305. I downloaded the RPMS and they installed without issue. I went to about:plugins with Firefox, and sure enough it was there. I went to Garmin Connect and the first message it gave was browser not supported. I restarted Firefox, and that error went away. The next problem, however, was that it said no devices were detected. I had long ago added ‘garmin_gps’ to my modprobe blacklist, and looking at the RPMS it seems to create an blacklist conf file for you. I was not sure the problem, so I looked into Garmin Tools command line programs to see if I could figure it out. Running ‘garmin_get_info’ returned nothing. So I unplugged and replugged in my Garmin Forerunner 305. Running ‘garmin_get_info’ this time produced a screen full of information. I returned to Garmin Connect and this time it detected my device. I clicked to upload new activities. The watch beeped a couple times and then the progress bar on Garmin Connect froze. So I returned to the command line and tried the ‘garmin_save_runs’ command. That downloaded everything just fine. So I reloaded Garmin Connect and tried uploading again. This time it made it through. I did not have any new runs on my watch, however, so it wasn’t a complete test.
I decided to go on a run just to test it out. I went on a short 4 mile loop. Upon returning I plugged it in and tried uploading. Everything seemed to work. It found the one new run and appeared to upload it. When I clicked the “Activities” link, however, to view it, it wasn’t there. Maybe I didn’t let it finish uploading. In retrospect I can’t be sure what I did, but the run was not there. So I tried uploading again. This time, however, it WORKED!!!! Below is my first run uploaded to Garmin Connect using Firefox on Linux. While the first try was not flawless, I could not be happier. Thanks to all those who have worked on it. Now I can add support for uploading hand-drawn courses in Routometer directly to your Garmin.