[Live-demo] Introduction

Tue Nov 23 18:54:10 EST 2010

Hi

Remember my call for OSgeo-server! I want to contribute to this, and to make
spanish translations of anything. By the way, my work now needs to install
the stack on RedHat/CentOS. I'm working on it.

saludos

2010/11/23 Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>

> We have had a few different people express an interest developing an
> OSGeo-Live version optimised for installation.
>
> I suspect that if timing is right for people interested in putting in the
> effort required, that we could create such a variant for this (or maybe
> next) release. Over the next few days, I'll dig through my emails and gauge
> interest from potentially interested parties.
>
>
> On 24/11/10 09:25, Alex Mandel wrote:
>
>> Jonathan,
>>
>> I understand the point, and maybe what we're searching for here is the
>> appropriate way to direct the interest. Personally I've been running a
>> 64bit workstation since 2005 exclusively on Ubuntu. I use the ubuntugis
>> repos all the time to pull 64bit builds of most of the desktop
>> applications, and 64bit jvm for running java apps.
>>
>> There is a high likelihood that our build actually works in a 64bit
>> environment without any tweaks (maybe a few apps that are from source
>> might get stuck). Given that, the OSGeo-live project's focus is
>> specifically on the DVD, USB, VM usage as a way to introduce people to
>> the software.
>>
>> If you would like to build and distribute a VM or DVD of the same stuff
>> for 64bit go for it. If it's done with our scripts and in coordination
>> with us we can also host the downloads. At some point it may even be
>> easy for us to build both at the same time(I'm researching it right
>> now). But given the larger footprint of 64 bit binaries and the
>> likelihood of incompatible machines we just don't have the people to
>> push that direction. Maybe we can make an svn branch to hold an minor
>> adjustments needed for 64bit building and you can work in there?
>>
>> Also you might want to look at our friend project http://gisvm.com/
>> where the focus is a GIS workstation build more than a demo. Or at
>> Poseidon Linux http://sites.google.com/site/poseidonlinux/ which is
>> starting to work with us too. This really starts to get at the idea of a
>> prepackage distro for GIS workstations. We are not a distro and never
>> plan to be, though OSGeo metapackages for ubuntu are not out of the
>> question (One click install of everything).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Alex
>>
>>
>> On 11/23/2010 02:02 PM, Jonathan Roach wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hamish,
>>>
>>> You make a very compelling point.
>>>
>>> however my intentions of experimenting with a 64 bit environment are to
>>> assist people buying estate of the art hardware to get their value for the
>>> money.
>>>
>>> now days users are buying estate of the art computer hardware (computers
>>> with multiple processing power), but there are very few software
>>> applications that can support a 64 bit environment. most application
>>> currently available can work in a 64 bit environment but they still do not
>>> use effectively the hardware resources available. Mostly, the Open Source
>>> Community have higher chances of making 64-bit software application. This
>>> will mean value for money for the low budget customer. Because developers of
>>> open source community are not subject to the politics and marketing
>>> strategies that a private company is subject to, Open source Software
>>> effectively working in a 64 bit environment will give the open source
>>> community the upper hand over the private companies making open source
>>> application more appealing to a low budget customer and others in the hunt
>>> for new software technologies.
>>>
>>> I work for a local government and our service provider, for mapping
>>> purposes, is Pitney Bowes MapInfo. MapInfo is great product but we have
>>> reach it's limits, as organizations that i work for is becoming more aware
>>> of how important GIS is for its core business, request are increasing. these
>>> are logical and reasonable requests but the program MapInfo has reached its
>>> limit and we are starting to run out of solutions. When we brought this to
>>> the attention of the Pitney Bowes Mapinfo, they simply did not have an
>>> answer and our request was thrown to the too hard basket. because they are
>>> not concern with problems of customer where they are not making any money
>>> on.
>>>
>>> and so as Cameron Shorter has made a point on several presentations of
>>> his we are stack with that vendor. but if open source software could offer a
>>> more appealing solution, a low budget customer, such as ourselves, could
>>> benefit from these solutions offered by the Open Source community, plus the
>>> support from companies such as Lisa-soft, would make it very appealing to
>>> customers.
>>>
>>> specially if it attracts the eye of a technically knowledgeable IT Manger
>>> of any organization who is starting to run out of options.
>>>
>>> but In response to your statements, Hamish, the live DVD is a
>>> demonstration only, if a customer signs up to purchase the software from the
>>> Open Source Community they will be installing it locally in their machines.
>>> not running it from the DVD.
>>>
>>> I think the Live DVD is a great idea for demonstration purposes only but
>>> nothing else. but it should provide the option of a 64-bit environment. if
>>> the software can operate well in the 64 bit environment then as you well
>>> state it, Hamish, 32 bit PCs will be around for the next 5-7 years, working
>>> in a 64-bit environment puts the Open Source Community Software Applications
>>> 5 to 7 years ahead of the market making us yet more appealing to not only to
>>> the low budget user but also to every one else.
>>>
>>> and for individual in the GIS industry opens a door of knowledge that not
>>> many of us would currently dare to step into because it is too risky.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Jonathan K. Roach
>>> Geographic and Land Information Systems Officer
>>> Division: Land Use and Sustainability
>>> Branch: Strategic Land Use Planning (Design and Technical Group/GIS)
>>> Manly Council
>>> Phone: (02) 9976 - 1612
>>> E-Mail: jonathan.roach at manly.nsw.gov.au
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Hamish [mailto:hamish_b at yahoo.com]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, 23 November 2010 3:13 PM
>>> To: live-demo at lists.osgeo.org; Jonathan Roach
>>> Cc: oo7bone at bigfoot.com
>>> Subject: Re: [Live-demo] Introduction
>>>
>>> Jonathan wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Particularly I would like to test in a 64 bit environment
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Hi and welcome.
>>>
>>>
>>> for what it's worth&  as is my understanding, despite common
>>> perceptions and advertising campaigns, 64bit is not magically
>>> faster and better than 32bit. fundamentally it just means that
>>> the addressable space goes from 2^32 bytes (a couple of gigs) to
>>> 2^64 (computer with that limit hasn't been invented yet).
>>> Integers can count higher by using twice the number of bits to
>>> store themselves in, and that's all.
>>>
>>> So 64bit is great for dealing with huge geo-data files (LFS),
>>> although most modern 32bit operating systems can deal with eg
>>>
>>>
>>>> 2gb files. WindowsXP famously doesn't reach it's theoretical
>>>>
>>>>
>>> limit of 4gb RAM, and the program saving/reading the file has
>>> to use the right variable type (eg off_t) in the memory address
>>> to be 32bit LFS-capable as well.
>>>
>>> actually if huge files/memory requirements are not an issue for
>>> you, you might very well be better off sticking with 32-bit as
>>> it only needs to push half of the I/O bandwidth!
>>>
>>> On the other hand, while amd64 CPUs runs 32bit quite well, the
>>> CPUs will, with time, be tuned for 64bit instruction sets.
>>> ..maybe the increased number of registers helps more than
>>> anything else to unclog processing bottlenecks?
>>>
>>>
>>> So, unless working with really massive datasets is a goal for
>>> our demo DVD, I'm not entirely convinced that it gains us
>>> anything useful, but it does make the dvd unusable on xx% of
>>> the computers out there, and like it or not, 32 bit PCs will
>>> be around for the next 5-7 years.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> regards,
>>> Hamish
>>>
>>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Solutions Manager
> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
> http://www.lisasoft.com
>
>
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-- 
Hernan Olivera
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