Fwd: Re: [gdal-dev] FWTools and GDAL 1.7.0

[Ari Jolma]

On 01/06/2011 01:18 AM, Tamas Szekeres wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Good points below, but having the compiled gdal binaries (and the 
> binaries of the dependent libraries) in hand, which is the right way 
> to install those files on Windows? (Assuming we don't provide 
> python.exe and the related files in the package)? I mean which install 
> actions should be done in detail?

>
>
> 2011/1/5 Christopher Barker:
>
>     """
>     Windows binaries built in MinGW are available at:
>
>     http://map.hut.fi/files/Geoinformatica/win32/
>
>     The Geoinformatica-yy-mm-dd.zip contains GDAL (usually a
>     development version), Perl-GDAL, Perl, and many other things.
>     """
>
>     good for MinGW users, I suppose -- I remember them not working for
>     me, tough I can't recall how or why not. They also suffer from
>     perhaps trying to be too much (though if it all worked, I wouldn't
>     care, I have a fast network and large hard drive)
>

I found it impossible to deliver a Windows binary solution, which would 
depend on the three main packages (Perl, GTK+, and GDAL) to be retrieved 
as binaries from some standard location - that's why I bundle them all 
together into a quite large (32MB) package.

When I started there was only ActivePerl for Windows that was usable, 
but it turned out impossible for me to use because they use MS 
compilers. Now there is Strawberry Perl, which I might try again (or pay 
someone to try). It is good because it uses MinGW.

There are binary installers for GTK+ for Windows, which install them 
into a shared location - but there are problems still and some pieces 
are missing that I need (Glade for example). The official GTK+ site has 
a long list of zips containing binaries. Despite the shared nature of 
GTK+, many projects include own binaries of them in Windows due to 
version mismatches etc.

GDAL is available but again typically as MS compiler builds - which 
should not be a problem in theory because the bindings use it through 
the C API. I've tried to use those a couple of times without luck 
(compiling the bindings in MinGW was the problem). Maybe I should try 
again using binaries from Tamas' site.

I agree that there could be a one main site for GDAL Windows binaries 
(something like http://www.gtk.org/download-windows.html). Tamas' site 
looks good but I'd like to have dev packages also (the SDK packages 
there look old) - just the header files should be enough.

Then there could also be a more end-user type Windows installation 
package project for GDAL, which installs the stuff into some standard 
location (c:\Program Files\share?). For GTK+ that's provided by some 
folks at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtk-win/

It would be neat to be able to just put to the Geoinformatica Windows 
installer subinstallations, which go and get Perl, GTK+ and GDAL for the 
user if she does not yet have them or has too old ones. In fact 
Geoinformatica should be simply installable through Perl's cpan 
application - but that does not even work in Linux yet :( (the reason is 
that the GDAL Perl module installation script is not intelligent enough 
and the version of the module in CPAN is horribly old and I really suck 
at managing that)

Best regards,

Ari

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