[Xastir] OSM maps: .geo files, local rendering?

[Jason KG4WSV]

Can someone suggest a method (or give me an RTFM reference) for
generating .geo files for OSM map server tiles?  I like the looks of
tangoGPS, and am exploring the use of one map tile set for both tango
and xastir (or more likely just using a tagoGPS map cache for an
xastir map base, since there's a fairly well defined tile interface).


I was also wondering if anyone has looked at installing a local map
rendering engine (e.g. mapnik) so that OSM maps can be used in an
offline mode?  I took a brief look on one of my systems (ubuntu, IIRC,
could have been CentOS), but it seemed like an all too typical linux
dependency death spiral, so I gave up fairly quickly.  If you've set
one of these up, do you have suggestions on which distro, a good
howto, etc?

I'm liking the looks of these OSM style maps, but if I can't have my
maps in an offline mode they're useless to me.

-Jason
kg4wsv