Forerunner 405 on Ubuntu
Dec 9th, 2009 by carles
Finally I got my Garmin Forerunner 405 working on Ubuntu! [1]
Thanks to Stephen O’Neill for his post and comments.
Well, a forerunner is a wristwatch that helps you to keep track of your training during and after the exercise. It monitors the pace, the heart rate, the speed, the route, etc.
How to configure it? (once)
Open a Terminal for the installation [2]
cd ~littleowl
wget http://cgit.get-open.com/cgit.cgi/gant/snapshot/gant-master.tar.bz2
tar -xjf gant-master.tar.bz2
cd gant-master
make
Forerunner 405 and the ANT usb are ready!
How to use it?
1. Plug the ANT usb into your computer and set your wristwatch in Pairing mode as shown below
Menu > Settings > ANT+Sport > Computer > Pairing > set to On
The wristwatch will ask you whether you want to pair it or not. Also check that,
Menu > Settings > ANT+Sport > Computer > Force send > set to Yes
Menu > Settings > ANT+Sport > Computer > Enabled > set to Yes
2. After that, two commands are required to connect devices and to download all data. [2]
/home/littleowl/gant-master/gant -f littleowl -a auth405 (accept pairing on your wristwatch)
/home/littleowl/gant-master/gant -nza auth405 > output
I added two icons to launch these commands from the Desktop (launchers), thus I don’t need to use the Terminal anymore (command-line interface) [3]
From now on I am able to upload and keep track of my training on Internet using Strands, Garmin Connect, and even from my computer using SportTracks, etc. 
[1] Ubuntu 9.10 – Karmic Koala
[2] Replace littleowl with your username
[3] Commands for Desktop launchers:
- Icon 1: /home/littleowl/gant-master/gant -f littleowl -a auth405
- Icon 2: /home/littleowl/gant-master/gant -nza auth405
- Destination folder: /home/littleowl/*.TCX
Uau! Té molt bona pinta… ja ho veuré en directe!
En el siguiente foro se menciona este post. Quizás pueda ayudar a aquellos que lleguen aquí desde un buscador, http://zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/Forums/viewtopic.php?p=37585
Hi
I just installed the gant package in my ubuntu from the official repository and got the following error message:
ral@thinkpad:~$ gant -V
gant: JAVA_HOME not set and cannot find javac to deduce location, please set JAVA_HOME.
ral@thinkpad:~$
Did you experienced this problem by the compilation from the snapshot?
Thanks for your feedback. Ral.
Read the README file and also ask for some advice on http://zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/Forums/
good luck,
Hi, Thanks a lot for this guide.
I am trying since long to run away from MS Windows and have to get my Forerunner 405 working with Ubunut 10.04. This page is now the most hopeful I found. But I have problmes. After entering the command to pair the watch and confirming the pairing, the program finishes saying “storing data” and reset. Output on the command line:
~/gant-master$ ./gant -f GAP -a auth405
channel open, waiting for broadcast
pairing, using id ec1aa24e
Unhandled response event 06
sending pair data for dev GAP
storing auth data in auth405
resetting
Can you please help me? What is going wrong with it?
Thanks a lot!
OK. I got connected and could finishing transferring of data. Unfortunatelly it transfers a old file from 2008, which I didnt know it was there. My last training workout last week has been ignored. My question: why it is like that, that not all training workouts are uploaded to the PC? As I tried it again, it transferred again the same old file. Are the transferred files not deleted on the F 405?
Thanks a lot for any help/answer
Hello there,
as I posted in some other forum before, I was able to download my tracks from my Garmin Forerunner 405 device to my linux computer using the steps above. However, the five oldest tracks were not transferred. I then deleted all the transferred tracks from the device, but it still doesn’t send the remaining five tracks. Instead, I get a segmentation fault now. With “force send” turned off on the device, the segfault occurs before any data is transferred (as can be seen in the file “output” from above). If “force send” is turned on, some data is transferred, but the segfault occurs before any tcx-file is written to the computer hard disk.
Can anybody make sense of this behaviour? I am glad I can transfer tracks at all, but would also like those five tracks on my computer. Thank you very much for any responses in advance.
Best
Eljenso