Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started (“How to use the offline routing engine”)

If you install luckyGPS and want to use the offline routing function, you need to do some things before.

1. Download an *.osm.bz2 file from e.g. Geofabrik and unpack the file.
2. To build the routing database, call luckyGPS like this (this function can take some time!):
   ./luckygps germany.osm
3. You only need to do this ONCE! Of course you CAN do it again to e.g. update your data or import another country. Your old database will be deleted every time you import a new one.
4. Now you can start luckyGPS as usual:
   ./luckygps
   or better yet: Use the luckyGPS icon in the menu.

Compile using Qt Creator

Just open the luckygps.pro project file into Qt Creator and build the project.

Compile using Make

There is a Makefile in the base directory which should work fine (tested under Ubuntu 9.10)

Compile on Windows

If you want to compile luckyGPS on 32bit Windows, you have to adapt the project file (64bit works out of the box, see “Compile using Qt Creator”).
Open the luckygps.pro project file and exchange every occurence of “win64” library folders with “win32“. It should be compile fine afterwards in Qt Creator.

Creating a deb file

• Using dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b in the base directory you can create your own deb files. Please edit the debian/control file accordingly (your name, email, etc).
• For specific versions: dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b -v0.6.0 -us -uc

Submit a bug/patch/bugfix

You can submit patches at http://code.google.com/p/luckygps/issues/list. Please give me a little time to review it before I apply it to the source.

If you provide regular patches/bug fixes I can add you to the list as project member and you’ll get svn write access

How can I help?

You can help by:

• Submit bug reports.
• Provide patches (enhancements) and/or bug fixes.
• Compile luckyGPS on your platform (needed e.g. is: OpenMoko/FreeRunner, etc).
• Translate luckyGPS into your native language (or any language you’re capable of).

How do I translate luckyGPS?

1. You need to install the Qt Toolkit and Qt Linguist (should be included, but better double check)
2. Now check if your the language you like to translate is available yet (and only incomplete) or totally missing (look up all luckygps_*.ts files in the source folder):
   • If there is no language file with your country identifier in the luckyGPS source home folder: You can create a .ts file in the luckyGPS source folder for your language like this:
     lupdate luckygps.pro -ts luckygps_fr.ts
     This example command generates the language file for French, use your country identifier (fr = French, de = German, es = Spanish, etc.).
3. Now open the luckygps_*.tr file in Qt Linguist
4. If you created a new language file, you’ll be asked which standard language is used in the application. Select “English” and “UnitedStates” there (see screenshot)
5. if you want to check your translation in the application you need to add your translation to luckygps.pro (just open it in a text editor or in Qt Creator) and add to the line
   “TRANSLATIONS = luckygps_de.ts luckygps_fr.ts”
   After that you only have to call
   lrelease luckygps.pro
6. Now you’re finished and you can enjoy your translation in luckyGPS! Please don’t forget to share your *.tr file in the bug tracker