Glonass BN-808 Glonass BN-808 USB GPS Receiver Receiver in Ubuntu 18.04

Solution 1:

The best way to ensure that it is detected is to check /var/log/syslog on its connection:

1. Disconnect GNSS receiver
2. Open terminal and run tail -f /var/log/syslog command
3. Connect GNSS receiver and wait for its initialization

For my u-blox7 GPS/GLONASS I have the following output:

May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.380440] usb 3-2: new full-speed USB device number 12 using xhci_hcd
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.509111] usb 3-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1546, idProduct=01a7
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.509115] usb 3-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.509117] usb 3-2: Product: u-blox 7 - GPS/GNSS Receiver
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.509119] usb 3-2: Manufacturer: u-blox AG - www.u-blox.com
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.509363] usb 3-2: ep 0x83 - rounding interval to 1024 microframes, ep desc says 2040 microframes
May 22 23:50:08 hostname mtp-probe: checking bus 3, device 12: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-2"
May 22 23:50:08 hostname mtp-probe: bus: 3, device: 12 was not an MTP device
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.537420] cdc_acm 3-2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.538041] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
May 22 23:50:08 hostname kernel: [99544.538044] cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

Note the bold lines above - we see that it is really u-blox 7 and that it is recognized as serial port - ttyACM0 (really /dev/ttyACM0).

To test the GNSS receiver you can use gpsmon (it will decode NMEA to time, latitude, longitude and other data):

1. Install gpsmon with sudo apt-get install gpsd-clients
2. Launch gpsmon for the found serial port with sudo gpsmon /dev/ttyACM0
3. Wait GNSS to find satellites and get NMEA data.

Note: to have access to serial ports as normal user, you need to add your user to the dialout group with sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER.