[mapserver-users] Mapserver & GDAL in various Linux repositories

[Daniel Morissette]

William Kyngesburye wrote:
> 
> It would be good to update the FGS page to show which versions are 
> included.
> 

That should happen very soon.

> Are the FGS builds of Apache, PHP, Postgres, ... and basic libraries 
> required for FGS MapServer GDAL, and other GIS tools and libraries?  Or 
> can they use system copies of these?  Clients may not be willing or able 
> to install duplicate copies of stuff available at the same version in 
> the system, especially on an existing server.
> 

Yes, FGS requires that you use its own version of all the base libs. 
However FGS's installation is self-contained and doesn't pollute any of 
the system directories (i.e. all files and libs live under 
/path/to/fgs/...). It is also built to play nicely with the preinstalled 
versions that may already be on the system.

I understand that some admins don't like duplicate copies of the same 
software on the system, but if we want to integrate with the system 
tools and libs then we would have to build deb or rpm packages for every 
OS and version which would be much more work than a single 
self-contained installer that brings all its dependencies with it and 
works anywhere. I hope that at some point in the future FGS will be 
obsoleted by native packages for each Linux distributions but we are not 
there yet.

Another benefit of FGS being self-contained is that you can run multiple 
instances with different versions of the software (GDAL, MapServer, 
etc.) on the same system without any problem. This is especially useful 
for developers or people doing frequent upgrades.

In the specific case of Apache, FGS allows you to pick a port to use so 
it won't conflict with an existing Apache install. In the case of 
postgres, it could connect to an existing postgres server, you are only 
required to let it load its own libpq (client lib).

Daniel


> Also, are there plans for 64bit builds?
> 

Not at the moment... but contributions would be welcome.  :)

Daniel
-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/