Not to disagree with "gpsdrive" for your specific application, but for general reference. For do-it-yourself GPS interfacing, there are Perl modules, which should work with either XP (with ActiveState Perl) or Ubuntu, or most anything else with suitable gazintas. http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=all&query=GPS -- Bill n1vux at arrl.net bill.n1vux at gmail.com