The following documents three applications that enable a Linux user to geocache.

Here's how geocaching.com defines geocaching: Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users.
Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of
a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and
share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find
the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is
asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.


GPSBabel GPSBabel deals with converting and sending "waypoints" (or sets of coordinates) from .gpx
files to your GPS receiver. .gpx files can be downloaded from geocaching.com and contain the nearest 500
caches (waypoints) from a desired location. I found this piece of software to be the cornerstone of
geocaching with Linux. The main benefit of GPSBabel is its ability to read and write to a variety of formats.
This makes the program available for use with virtually all GPS's. The main drawback of the program is the
inability to construct a data base for desirable waypoints. Similar programs on different OS's have the ability
to view, filter, and manipulate the waypoints before exporting to a GPS.


KPilot KPilot is the second fundamental piece of software for geocaching. It deals with exporting
waypoints to palm pilots. The main benefit of this is that a geocacher can have all the data about caches
(the description, the difficulty rating, the terrain rating, the hint, past logs) available on the road.
We call this "paperless caching" because the alternative is printing out all this info on paper. The largest
problem with KPilot was that it doesn't convert .gpx files. To get around this, CMConverter can be used.
This command line application converts .gpx files to the proper format.


GeoQO GeoQO is a project that deals with "geographical waypoint managemen".
This program takes cache data and calculates interesting graphs and statistics. The most interesting stat I
found was the "cache density" plots. GeoQO will take in as many caches as you give it and create a Google
earth KML file that looks similar to the temperature maps you see on news shows. When you load this KML file
into Google earth, a layer is added to the map that shows the concentration on caches with different colors.
GeoQO also exports waypoints to GPS's.


by chris f.