[ELGIS] regarding new packages, updrading existing and other ELGIS questions

[Mathieu Baudier]

Hi Rashad,

> I can find GDAL 1.9 here - http://elgis.argeo.org/gitweb/?p=gdal.git;a=tree. If I would like to step in an update GDAL package and maybe add some other packages what is the exact procedure?

To update existing packages :
- clone the git repository
- merge from the related Fedora git repository, or perform the changes
- commit them locally
- run mock locally on it (using the git capabilities of mock)
- send a diff/patch on this list (or the whole files), or directly to
me, or push them somewhere as some publicly available git repository

(if you use Eclipse, there are .project files in each repo, which make
it easy to import them as Eclipse projects and use their RPM spec file
editor and git client)

To create new ones, in most cases we simply fork the head of the
related Fedora repo (http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/) and create a
branch 'elgis6' from it. Then checkout this branch do the changes if
any, test on mock and same procedure.

The idea then, is that sometimes you will want to create a
'myCompany6' branch, or 'myProject6' branch of a given package, for
certain needs (use Oracle drivers, use development version, use
PostgreSQL v9, rollback to some earlier versions, etc.) Once the
project is done, you can merge back the useful stuff to the 'elgis6'
branch, test it, and contribute it.

> I had some packaging experience with ubuntu. So far list of required packages are GDAL 1.11, OSSIM, ITK, OTB

I know that there is some interest for OSSIM. I already had a look and
I suspect this will not be easy, but this is always feasible. If I
well remember someone had tried already. I can search in my mails when
you really get into this.

Personally, my main interest would be in PostGIS v2 and pgRouting v2.
On EL6 we would probably create postgis2 and pgrouting2 packages,
which would become the only ones on EL7. (as we had done with
mapserver6  at the end of CentOS 5)

> I had read ELGIS wiki page on OSGeo but not clear about next steps. For instance, mock build is recommened but cannot find any proper instruction in the wiki.

mock --scm-enable -r elgis-6-testing-x86_64 --scm-option package=geos -v

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Enterprise_Linux_GIS#How_to_hack_and_locally_build_the_ELGIS_packages

> Also How to push new packages to git and build from there like the example in wiki building GEOS package ?

At this stage, I prefer to build and update the repositories myself
(or give access to some well-known members of the community). This is
a goal to make this part easier, but as was discussed separately
today, providing a public infrastructure has a lot of implications.

> And also if there is a package available in fedora (InsightTookit) but not in CentOS. what is the recommended way of getting it in CentOS? Should I copy the spec file, rebuild and submit?

Yes, fork Fedora! (if the package is not in EPEL or not recent enough
there) We also add some non-GIS dependencies in ELGIS when needed.

CentOS only rebuild RHEL, but they also have some additional repos. Of
course, you can also offer to help EPEL but there process is more
formal and they often have good reasons to keep older versions.

But maybe let's first try to update together some of the existing base
GIS packages.

> Thanks for your help in advance

Thanks in advance for you contribution,

Mathieu