[Xastir] map problem on MEPIS

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 4 Feb 2010, Rob Neece wrote:

> Perhaps the xastir package I installed included Imagemagick, and having the 
> library is sufficient?  These are questions I don't know the answer to.  In 
> any case, I don't want to go adding packages willy-nilly to try to fix this 
> problem.

Start Xastir from an xterm and captue the first 30 lines or so.
Also check the Xastir Help->About dialog and see what the "Libraries
used:" line says.  Report those back to us here.


> Directories NC and VA are populated with .MAP files, but contents do not show 
> up in the map chooser.  Everything else shows up in the chooser, but 
> selecting items has no effect other than chosen items are highlighted. 
> Currently, online/tigermap.geo is selected.

Regarding installing maps but not having them show up in the Map
Chooser:  There can be two different issues:

1) The libraries for the type of map that you're installing weren't
compiled into Xastir.

2) You haven't run "Map->Configure->Index: Reindex ALL Maps".  Note
that the two "Index" menu items above that one should normally work
if you don't have old timestamps on the map files you add.  Since it
works off timestamps, sometimes people install new map files but the
timestamps are weeks/months/years old.  If Xastir's index file is
newer than the maps, it won't index them with those two options and
you have to either use the Reindex ALL option or you need to "touch"
each of the map files to update their timestamps.

Check whether "libcurl" or "wget" are installed.  Xastir would have
been compiled to use one of these to go fetch the internet-based map
files.  The lines you captured above should tell you which you need.
The package manager in MEPIS should have installed all of the
dependencies for you if they created the Xastir package for it
perfectly.


> The .xastir/config/xastir.conf file contains these entries:
> AUTO_MAP_DIR:/usr/share/xastir/maps
> ALERT_MAP_DIR:/usr/share/xastir/Counties
> SELECTED_MAP_DIR:/usr/share/xastir/maps
> SELECTED_MAP_DATA:config/selected_maps.sys

Note that the standard directory if you compile from sources is
/usr/local/share/xastir/*

Sometimes people will compile from sources AFTER they've installed a
binary package that installs into a different directory, then their
config files can be pointing at the old directory set instead of the
new.  The easy fix is to remove the old packages first, remove the
entire ~/.xastir area (your per-user config files), then install the
new stuff.  After that you can move your map files to the new area
(/usr/local/share/xastir/maps/) and start up the new Xastir:  It
will create your per-user config files from scratch.  Then reindex
ALL maps and set your callsign and location and you're good to go.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.                         <http://www.eskimo.com/~archer>
    APRS:  Where it's at!                    <http://www.xastir.org>
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Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates. - WE7U.
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