[postgis-devel] Debian packaging and compilation from source: Do not depend on postgresql-8.4

[Kirill Müller]

Hello,

today I faced the following problem: I wanted to run shp2pgsql on a 
machine that didn't have PostGIS installed. Installing it would require 
postgresql-8.4 (due to the dependencies in the .deb file), which is a 
rather strong requirement I didn't want to fulfill -- after all, I only 
need shp2pgsql. I ended up with copying postgis_config.h.in to 
postgis_config.h and patching it (because ./configure wouldn't run, as 
pg_config is not available), patching the Makefile in the loader 
subdirectory (because some included Postgres makefile and the iconv 
library is not installed, and luckily not requred) and making just 
shp2pgsql.

Would it be possible to (a) separate the loader tools from the rest, 
perhaps with a dedicated and less restrictive configure script, or (b) 
at least convert the postgresql-8.4 dependency to a "Suggests"? Any 
thoughts?


Best regards

Kirill