[GRASS5] Debian

[Dan Jacobson]

One would expect the premier free GIS, GRASS,
to have an up to date shiny version for the premier free distribution,
Debian, of the premier free operating system, GNU/Linux.

Could it be that Grass core developers mostly use "other leading
brands"?  No announcements of new items should be made until that item
is also nicely packaged and ready for debian.

Let's make the grass installation experience a simple "apt-get"
instead of an arduous "educational experience".

That um, I just happen to use Debian, is, um just a coincidence :-)

>> Anyway, as I run debian, and compiling grass 5.0.0 proved beyond me,
>> I will wait for the .deb,

H> FYI:
H> For the debian package of 5.0pre4, see http://packages.debian.org/grass

yeah, but that name sounds funny.  Sounds like even the top grass
developers had problems making the current version work with
debian... so if even the top grass developers felt it too much of a
challenge to make a to compile on debian (and make the current .deb),
then you can expect that it would be an unreasonable challenge for an
average user.


H> For more about fetching the .debs from testing if you run stable, see:
H> http://op.gfz-potsdam.de/GRASS-List/Archive/msg07267.html

odd, grasslist messages as seen on 
gmane.comp.gis.grass.user on gmane.org number only in the 5000's. OK, I'll check.

H> For some notes on compiling GRASS for debian, see:
H> http://bambi.otago.ac.nz/public/general/grass/compile_reqs_debian.txt
H> and
H> http://bambi.otago.ac.nz/public/general/grass/compile_5.0.0_debian.txt

H> Read the INSTALL file in the source package and search the grass mailing list
H> for 'debian' ... the process really isn't hard at all once you get the
H> ./configure line right and have all the required packages. Figuring that out

See, to be a grass user one also must be an expert in installation.  I
bet an ARC/INFO user doesn't have to master that part.  Ah, but grass
is free, so don't ask too much.  Ah, but if the grass developers took
the tiny extra step of making a .deb too, that would save so many
potential users so much trouble.

H> is the hard part. (and is spelled out in the above links to bambi.otago.ac.nz)

OK, but it should be done once by an expert, (Mr. FOG?), and then the
rest of us could just get the .deb.

It seems the solution is for the core Grass developers to start using
debian...  and make .debs for us...

BTW, lets say that there are .deb's available.  But what happens when
you want to install a outside package, e.g. r.cva? would one need a
grass-devel .deb also?

Sorry for the 'demanding customer' Don Rickles emulation, "You owe me
something".  I do it in all my posts :-)
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