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osm-garmin

Garmin maps of your OpenStreetMap regions, with trails, for QMapShack

  • Version recorded: station
  • Categories: navigation-maps
  • Upstream: https://www.mkgmap.org.uk/
  • Needs first: osm-regions, mkgmap, mkgmap-splitter

What it does

Builds one Garmin map per region osm-regions downloaded, as the operator in a staging directory: mkgmap-splitter cuts the region into tiles, mkgmap draws them with its default style, which already shows and routes paths, footways, tracks and bridleways. The map lands under /usr/local/share/hammunition/data/osm-garmin/, where QMapShack's launcher points it.

Why you would want it

QMapShack cannot read OpenStreetMap's .osm.pbf directly. Building the maps here means it happens once per region's data, is recorded like any other install, and is undone by hammunition uninstall.

Before it will work

osm-regions with at least one region set in station config, and mkgmap with mkgmap-splitter; all install first. With no regions set this unit is deferred by name.

How it installs

  • converted from osm-regions by mkgmap (ODbL-1.0, https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright)

Known problems

Measured on one US-state-sized region on 2026-09-28: the split took 48 s, the build 126 s, the map is 0.85 times the download, and the staging directory peaks near 2.9 times the download while it runs, removed once the map is installed. The plan uses those factors and says they were measured on one region. There is no hiking cartography: the archive carries no hiking style or TYP file, so trails are drawn as mkgmap's default draws them. The address index is not built (its bounds files have no published checksum), and QMapShack would not read it anyway. The map carries the Open Database License obligations of the data.

Keeping it current

  • probe: none
  • strategy: reinstall
  • Follows osm-regions: a region whose downloaded file changed is built again on the next install, and one that did not is skipped.

Where to get help with the software itself

The mkgmap-dev mailing list (https://www.mkgmap.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/mkgmap-dev); problems in the map data are fixed in OpenStreetMap (https://www.openstreetmap.org/fixthemap).

Source: catalog/packages/osm-garmin.yaml