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New user confusion
#1
Hello, my name is Shawn, and I'm a new user of OpenPlotter. And I'm confused. I know the end result I want is a robust, open source chart plotter that does all the things, but I'm confused about how to get there. Here's my background for a frame of reference. I'm a US Navy veteran of 22 years that used my GI bill to attend the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building in Port Hadlock, Washington to become a marine systems tech. I have spent the last year since graduating working on all manner of marine systems, while refitting and re-powering my own boat here in Port Townsend, WA. 
  I live aboard Sea Bear, a 1985 C&C Landfall 39 that I eventually hope to circumnavigate in. My plan is to continue working on and learning about marine systems, while paying off debt and finishing the refit. In the past few years I have sailed Sea Bear from San Diego to Glacier Bay, Alaska and back to the Puget Sound using Open CPN running on a Windows box. I tried to use linux on the box, but it was never stable. I was able to integrate my radar, radio and SDR AIS into the system, but I always wanted to be able to do more with it. That's what drew me to OpenPlotter.
  Now that the introduction is out of the way, here's what I'm finding confusing. I have limited linux or programing experience, and I don't work in the tech industry. I was able to download and flash 2019-12-16-OpenPlotter-Starting-v2.0-pre-release-NOOBS.zip, and get that running, but I'm kind of at a standstill now. I know the kind of issues I'm having are noob issues, and those questions have probably been asked a thousand times, but, it seems to be exceptionally difficult to move forward via Google. The boards here are confusing and tedious, as most of the information relates to V 1.0, except for the now closed OpenPlotter 2 roadmap thread, and some post here in the General discussion forum. From my perspective, if the board opened a new forum dedicated to OpenPlotter 2 it would help to alleviate some of that. It would probably be helpful to relocate any threads pertaining to OP2 to said forum.
  I guess that's my gripe in general, is that the documentation/information seems to be spread out everywhere, with no central location, making it a struggle to achieve my goal of a robust, open source chart plotter that does all the things. I realize that this is beta software, probably best left to more experienced user/hackers, and that waiting for V 2.0 stable is probably the best answer, but I'll admit, patience is not one of my virtues. All that being said, how can I help?  I don't have a lot of experience in IT, but I'm willing to learn, and I'd like to be able to contribute if I can.


Shawn
S/V Sea Bear
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#2
OP2 is usable even in it's beta form, but as you say, the documentation hasn't really caught up with the great work that Sailoog and others have been doing on the program itself.

It might help to take it step by step for the moment. What sensors, displays, etc. are you wanting to connect? Let's take them one at a time and see if we can get you going.
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