[GRASS-dev] New Binary Package Project for winGRASS

[Marco Pasetti]

Hi,

I decided to change the subject of the mail to a better one, and then to
send the mail to the list, as I should have done before (sorry for the
mistake). Let we start from this:

>I think that if you could provide the binary package plus a directory which
contains all the source tarballs you used
>and your compilation information, this would be perfect. If you rather have
me host these files, I can do so as well.

>If you can, then that's perfect and I "officially" pass on the
responsibility for maintaining the windows binary packages (cc to Markus for
info).
>I will obviously continue to help you and try to debug whenever possible. I
have started to add some ToDo's on the Wingrass Status wiki page.
>This is probably the best place to keep track of what still needs to be
done.

>So, as soon as your package of libraries (and header files) is ready, could
you let me know where I can get it,
>so that I can adapt my build system to that ?

I'm very excited about that, that is officially contribute to a such
important family ;-) ...but it's the first time for me (I mean about
software releasing and all things related), so I guess that I need to learn
some things before...
That's my questions:

For an user-oriented self installer:

1. because I added some extra-supports in GRASS (such as PostgreSQL, SQLite
and ActiveTcl), I could use Dependency Walker to securely check what files
are needed and then add them in ../bin dir, in order to prepare a self
contained package/installer, whitout the need of asking the user to install
other pieces of software; but, can I do that (I mean about licenses,
permissions, and so on...)? About PostgreSQL and SQLite I rebuilt packages
from source, while about ActiveTcl I used prebuit windows installer.

2. since the new wxPython GUI still doesn't work on windows (for RC05, I'll
check on trunk in the next days), I think that we can avoid to include it in
the RC05 package as requirement; why tell the user to install Python and
wxPython if the new GUI doesn't work?

3. do we really need MSYS? Quantum GIS self installer still have MSYS inside
(only few files), whithout the need of installing it separately. Can we do
do the same?

For development-oriented package:

I thought about the following options:

1. pack all the MSYS "local" folder, excluding sources; all the applications
and libraries included has been built by source with MSYS/MinGW, excluding
Flex and Bison, for which I used prebuilt binaries packages from sourceforge
GNUWin32 Project;

2. pack all the MSYS "local" folder, including sources for all the
libraries/applications built;

3. pack all the MSYS environment, including MinGW installation, "local"
folder and sources; actually, I think that both MSYS and MinGW don't need to
be installed from related installers, you can just copy all the MSYS folder
to your local hard drive.

While for the compilation information i could:

1. add a pdf print of the html guide
2. add a simple text (txt) copy of the html guide

>Sounds perfect. You can put the link here:
>http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Compile_and_Install#MS-Windows.2Fnative
>and we could erase this part
>http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/WinGRASS_Current_Status#Compiling_by_your
self
>and just link to the previous wiki page.

So I'll need to subscribe, log-in, delete previous entries and the simply
add a "... see here for instructions" link?

Marco