[Xastir] couple quick q's

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Fri, 2 May 2003, N1OFZ wrote:

> When Xastir creates the maps initially for display a gif gets created
> in /var/tmp called xastir_dr_map.gif.  How is this image different than
> turning off all the stations and turning on snapshots?  Other than the
> snapshot images is a png?  Is there a reason the png would be better?

Yea, it's royalty-free, unlike GIF's.  There's been a bit of a
revolt against GIF's for any use in open-source software, 'cuz the
owner of the patent (LZW compression?) started going after programs
that created GIF's, and perhaps ones that display them, with legal
documents requesting large licensing fees.

The images you're seeing in /var/tmp are only used for the on-line
services, and are the destinations for the libcurl or wget calls.
For maps you have on disk already, we don't go through that step.


> Just curious as to what you are considering for the backend?  Mysql,
> Postgresql, something else?  This would be great and I'd love to help
> out to the best of my ability.  I have some experience with
> mysql/postgres.  I also have 2 guys on my staff that are Postgres gurus
> and I can leverage them a little if necessary.

PostgreSQL at first.  We'd probably like to have a database
independent layer so that Oracle Spatial or even local DBM files
might be placed there as well.  Some people won't have the
need/desire to have an SQL database running just to do APRS stuff.
Some will.

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_ at tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
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