Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Packages, Installers, and Disk Images
Depending on your platform of choice, you may be installing
RPMs, DEBs, or . tgz on Linux; . zip or bundled installers on Win-
dows; and disk images (. dmg ) or OS X installers on Mac. Most
open source GIS projects provide these binary images, and of
course it's up to you to determine which to install. As we go
along, we'll give you hints on the installation process and men-
tion all three platforms.
Here are some things to be aware of when going the binary route:
• Some packages and/or installers are not provided or maintained
by the open source project but by third parties.
• Depending on your operating system, the latest version may not
be available.
• The availability of packages for your platform may lag behind the
general release of a new version.
Going with a binary package or installer is definitely the way to go when
test-driving an application for the first time. This gives you a chance
to easily try things without the hassle of gathering dependencies and
compiling from source.
In some cases, you have to compile from source because you have no
alternative. Here are some reasons why you might want to compile an
OSGIS application:
• The binary isn't available for your platform.
• You want the latest and greatest features, but they haven't been
released yet.
• You want to customize your toolkit.
Compiling a suite of tools from source can be a daunting task for the
average user, even for the advanced GIS user. When first starting out,
you should consider using binary packages for your platform. This
keeps you from becoming frustrated with the process of boot strapping
a system from scratch. Once you gain familiarity with the tools and
how they interact, you'll be ready to venture into compiling your own
system. For now, let's start with the packaged binaries and learn how
to use the software rather than get frustrated with the build process
out of the gate.
 
 
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