[OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] RE : Re: OSGEO4W future

[Alex Mandel]

On 09/24/2013 12:50 AM, Johan Van de Wauw wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 2:08 AM, Angelos Tzotsos <gcpp.kalxas at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>
>> Hi Daniel,
>>
>> I am in favor of both OSGeoLive and OSGeo4W going through a few weeks
>> incubation process.
>>
>> Best,
>> Angelos
>>
> My own impression is that if we want to reach out to non-geek GIS
> users the ideal way would be a system like portable GIS with the great
> documentation of the live dvd, ie run and test the programs without
> needing to be admin or having to install different programs.

I've researched this problem, talked with Jo (Current author of
PortableGIS http://www.archaeogeek.com/portable-gis.html)

There is almost no way to make this work without Admin priveleges on a
windows machine. Some individual apps can be made to work by extensively
modifying how they look for libs but many require things like a jvm to
run on top of, or a mix of system an local libs (e.g. Visual C++ is
required for many OSGeo4W apps and requires an install, that's actually
about the only part that has to be installed vs just in the OSGeo4w folder).

This is actually why I settled on helping create OSGeo Live bootable
products and virtual machines. Of course this isn't perfect either as
figuring out how to boot a disk or usb seems beyond some users, and the
virtual machine still hits needing admin to install virtualization software.

I also agree there's no reason many of the documentation efforts can't
be shared.

Thanks,
Alex