[Xastir] openSUSE 10.2 CVS Success

[Tom Russo]

On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 01:26:04PM -0500, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <lee.bengston at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
>  On 7/8/07, Steve Friis <wm5z at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > What you have below is great. Just one thought here though. In the
> > scripts folder there is a script file <get-maptools.sh> that pretty much
> > installs everything. Is this going to go away? I think it sure made the
> > install easy. Gives you all the needed libraries.
> >
> > Steve/WM5Z
> 
> 
>  It might be just me, but I like to install as much as possible from the
>  repositories for the applicable distribution, and then if there is anything
>  left, use the get-maptools script to make up the difference.  That looks
>  like the approach taken in the HowTo:Ubuntu 6.10 or
>  7.04<http://www.xastir.org/wiki/index.php/HowTo:Ubuntu_6.10>.

My intention with the HowTo:Ubuntu... page was to describe how a typical
user might want to install xastir.  That being the case, one would want to
allow the package management system to handle the maximum number of external
libraries --- that way they are always updated and rarely stuck at ancient
versions.  Once you decide to install a software tool by hand from source,
you're exempting that package from automatic updates through the package
management system.

get-maptools.sh is convenient, but it installs particular revisions of some
software that is better left to the package management system, such as
pcre.  pcre can be required by more than just xastir, and has more updates
than most of the other things that get-maptools.sh installs.  Installing
an old version from source can cause problems for those managed packages that 
need it.  get-maptools installs pcre 6.3, and the current version is past
7.0.  

Proj.4 is another thing that is easily installed through the package management
system, and while it is more stable than most things, is still subject to more
updates than get-maptools is.  Proj.4 is already up to 4.5.x, and get-maptools
still installs 4.4.9 (at least two releases old).  Most package management
systems track that reasonably well --- it's certainly the case that Ubuntu
and FreeBSD both have current proj versionsin their package
systems.

gdal, not needed by most users, is installed by get-maptools by default, and
it's not even a current version --- they're coming up on release 1.4.2 now,
and get-maptools still installs 1.3.2 (I updated that back in November,
and it's already stale).  Not that it matters for xastir, because
xastir barely uses that library.  But try to install any current version of
GRASS or QGIS, and GDAL 1.3.2 will cause some problems.

Further, get-maptools is not actively maintained by any xastir developer, and 
we usually don't update the software it installs until someone points out that 
the versions it's looking for aren't available anymore, or someone gets a 
wild hair and goes through it looking for moldy versions.

On my own systems, I tend to install software from bleeding-edge source code
only for those packages for which I need bleeding-edge, or for which the
system's package management system is absurdly stale --- for example, GRASS
QGIS, and GDAL are almost never cutting edge (or even current) in most package 
management systems, and are usually at least two or three releases behind the 
times.  And once I've made the decision to do that, I'm stuck checking for
new versions rather frequently.  But shapelib is pretty much at a development 
dead end, so there's no need to install it from sources unless there's no 
packaged version available.

So basically, get-maptools is a nice tool for when you *can't* get everything
installed even easier through the package management system, or for when
the versions in the package management system are even staler than the ones
that get-maptools installs.

In short, I think it's wise for the Wiki HowTo pages for specific OS installs
to document the install for that system making use of the maximum number of
managed packages, and to minimize the amount of software downloaded and
installed outside of the package management system.  Individual users who
have special needs can figure out how to modify the instructions to get what
they want, and those who just want something that works and is stable can
follow the instructions as written. 

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick