[GRASSLIST:1301] Re: Problem of installation..

[Eric G . Miller]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 07:05:43AM +0100, a.bonicatti at studenti.to.it wrote:
> Hello
> 
> I'm a GIS student interested to use grass, I've installed grass 5.0 
> beta for linux from a tar gz and everything seem gone right.
> Well now from the root prompt if I digit the command:  grass5 
> anything work.. (but not appear any error message)

Strange...

> I've no more documentation about, is necessary to pass parameters 
> to the command line?

No.

> How could I start to work?
> I've tried to start the user interface with the command: tcltkgrass&
> without success; 

GRASS must be running already.  You'll get a prompt like:

GRASS:~>

when it's "running".

> (probably is necessary to define a project area I've read..)

Yes.  You will need to define a "database" (just a directory for your
data, which must already exist), a "location" (which is a directory
under the "database" where all the data is in a common projection and
coordinate system -- the directory will be created if it doesn't exist),
and you will need to specify a "mapset" (which is another directory under
the "location" and which will be the "active" dataset that you can
modify during the current GRASS session).  You need to know the
projection and coordinate system information before you start.  This
takes a little getting used to, but it simplifies many operations for
GRASS.

> Some suggestions is welcome.

Try running the startup script directly like:

$ /usr/local/bin/grass5 -text

There have been some problems with the initial start-up routine that
this may help with.  You should either get a welcome message or an
error (hopefully, the welcome message).  If it works, you'll then be
prompted for the "database/location/mapset" information mentioned above.

If that still doesn't work, please try to describe your operating system
and version, as well as how you installed GRASS.  That will help us
diagnose the problem better.

-- 
Eric G. Miller <egm2 at jps.net>