[Xastir] libtiff / geotiff install hiccup

[T Wegner]

> Where are you getting your instructions?

Well, it's a long story, but I started here:

http://www.xastir.org/wiki/Installation_Notes#Mac_OSX

looked into the VMWare option, decided against since it was a limited  
time deal, and didn't want to be locked out down the road - had no  
idea how long it might take me to get things going.

so next went here:

http://www.xastir.org/wiki/HowTo:Mac_OSX

but when I saw this:

"Some people have reported problems with Fink. I haven't encountered  
any yet so I still use it. Fink is a package manager that will keep  
you from having to build all the Xastir dependencies from source.

I also continue to use fink. I have had problems with FinkCommander  
(the GUI interface for Fink) but the core utilities continue to work  
fine. Dick."

I thought, 1) if people are having trouble with it, I want to avoid  
it, as I have no command line experience, and 2) as in the above  
example and others, it was unclear to me exactly who was saying what,  
and to whom . . . at times it sounded as though the author and "Dick"  
were 2 different people, at other times, not.

continuing down the list, I went here:

http://www.xastir.org/wiki/Macports

which directed me to here:

http://n1ofz.connares.org/software/Xastir

which gives me a "network problem" message and no access

so I went here:

http://www.xastir.org/wiki/MacOSXpackage

which was another dead end

next here:

http://www.xastir.org/wiki/MacOSXsource

directing me to the same dead end

and then:

http://www.xastir.org/wiki/Notes:Mac_OSX

much of which I did not understand, and in the end, was once again  
referenced to that same dead end.

SO . . .

I did a search for "Xastir" and "Mac" and landed here:

http://www.wx9grb.org/xastir/mac.htm

and I thought, Eureka!  I'm familiar with the Packerland group (name  
credibility via Skywarn), and they seem to have the information from  
the site I was unable to access above in all those dead end instances,  
and reading through it, it seemed oriented toward operators such as  
myself, with little command line experience, and quite doable.

Following the sites instructions, I installed what I could using  
MacPorts. The instructions noted that shapelib and geotiff can not be  
installed with MacPorts, and provided the instructions I've been  
posting in my "problem threads". This is where I've run into the  
troubles.

I did a search for libtiff and mac this evening, came up with a source  
(for a different program, but like this one, need to install it first  
- called it a "dependency"), and the instructions in the last post. I  
did that, watched as the screen scrolled by with lots of alpha- 
numerics, saw a number of "no" conditions and it ended with some  
warning/errors. When I tried to continue with the geotiff configure  
and make, I ended up with the same "configure: error: You will need to  
substantially rewrite libxtiff to build libgeotiff without libtiff"  
message. I moved the libtiff library out of the tiff-3.9.4 folder and  
into the libgeotiff folder thinking it did not know the where the  
libtiff library was, that did nothing, and I stopped.

I believe I have hit a brick wall in this direction. Would like the  
ability to use USGS geoTIFF's but unless someone can point me in a  
direction to solve the libtiff conundrum, I guess I could live without  
it, or wait until someone develops something to make this work  
seamlessly.

Re: other discussion about intel mac, it will be some time before I  
can afford a new macbook, and even then, I wouldn't dream of taking it  
into the field - only older computers for that for me.

Thanks for listening, the help you've given thus far, and any advice  
you may provide yet.

73
Tom



On Sep 20, 2010, at 20:28, Tom Russo wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 07:57:01PM -0500, we recorded a bogon- 
> computron collision of the <towegn at tds.net> flavor, containing:
>> presuming i found a source for libtiff, and was advised to use the
>> following instructions for loading on to mac os x
>
> Where are you getting your instructions?  They seem to be fairly  
> incomplete
> and in at least some cases (where you were told to do manual copies  
> and
> ranlibs of libshp) they're not quite normal.  And it seems you're  
> being told
> to install just about every single package from sources without  
> using any
> package management (fink, macports, or whatever).  These do not seem  
> to be
> the best set of instructions to follow for a low-maintenance first- 
> time install
> onto a Mac.  The Xastir wiki has multiple sets of instructions for  
> installing
> onto Macs, and none suggest doing full, manual source installs of  
> all these
> packages.
>
> But in general, the default behavior of "configure" is to install  
> things
> in /usr/local (that is, it is redundant to specify "--prefix=/usr/ 
> local").
> So doing configure/make/make install on libtiff is a normal approach  
> to
> installing it from source.  But it's strange to need to do all those  
> steps
> on a Mac, unless you're avoiding MacPorts and Fink for some particular
> reason.  And there's a recent binary version available that would  
> probably
> suit you better unless you really want to learn exactly what all these
> steps are for.
>
> -- 
> Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
> Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236        http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
> "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."
>