Why I wish there were more Linux friendly "things" out there

I recently purchased a Garmin 405CX GPS watch that I wear when I go out running/biking etc. The idea is to use the watch to train to become a healthier person. It also helps that you can tell time with it. However, it does not work easily with my Operating System (I use Ubuntu 11.04).

I realise that the vast majority of the world likely doesn't care about Linux, but I would have thought they would at least provide a usable way to get the data manually off the watch via the USB ANT+ thing they provide. I installed Firefox 5 beta using wine and then tried to install the plugin that way (it won't let you install on the Linux version of FF)... but the plugin never quite installed. I was able to load the garmin_usb module using

sudo modprobe garmin_gps

and see it in lsmod:

Module                  Size Used by
garmin_gps             23245 0
usbserial              42908 1 garmin_gps

I gave up after some fiddling... and resolved to use Windows XP instead. It is a shame really.

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