[GRASS-dev] GRASS and QGIS on Win32, testing etc.

[Michael Barton]

On 5/21/07 4:58 AM, "Benjamin Ducke" <benjamin.ducke at ufg.uni-kiel.de> wrote:

> 
> My problem simply is that I am getting tangled up in the different Win32
> migration schemes used by the GRASS and QGIS developers. I would love to
> provide Win32 testing feedback and reports for compilation, installation
> and usage, but I simply don't know where to start!
> 
> Could we please decide on one common approach to supply a stable GRASS
> Win32 base that can be shared by both the GRASS and QGIS teams? As far
> as I understand, Moritz' system differs in that it supports the Tcl/Tk
> stuff? But now there is talk about getting rid of MSYS?
> 
> Sorry for the lengthy post and all the complaining but if you could
> stand inside my shoes right now, you would see a great chance to claim a
> good share of an entire discipline for GRASS GIS. And not being able to
> make use of this is pretty frustrating.
> 

Benjamin,

I agree with your assessment about archaeologists being ready to use this,
but that we need to get a Windows version up and running. This is well
underway.

You'll probably get feedback from others, but here is a quick synopsis.

Cygwin is the old, stopgap method to get GRASS running in some way under
windows. However, it is difficult to install, especially on lab machines and
often conflicts with Byzantine Windows security measures. I believe the
Cygwin is being maintained, but not being actively developed.

For the past 6-9 months, Paul Kelley, Moritz Lennart, Glynn Clements and
others have been developing a Windows native version of GRASS--initially
with MinGW (I'm not sure where it is at now from a developer/compiler
standpoint), and using Mysys for script access.

Currently, there is a very usable version that Moritz has kindly made
available as a binary for testing at

http://moritz.homelinux.org/grass/wingrass/

One of my students taught a GRASS short course with an early version of it
last fall. It was a bit rocky at that time, but is much nicer now.

It is a simple zip file and easy to install. Currently, it requires you to
separately install TclTk, and Mysys if you want to use scripts. It needs
testing, but is very actively being worked on. This is the direction for
GRASS for Windows. 

I've seen it run and it is very nice. NVIZ is missing, but very recent posts
suggest that this can be going again with minor work.

I hope that this is helpful and encouraging.

Michael


__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Arizona State University

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton