[osgeo4w-dev] So does this mean the old non-networked versions will die?

[Frank Warmerdam]

Joanne Cook wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am just wondering what this means for the old way of acquiring FWTools et
> al. I am interested in providing GIS in environments where a network
> connection is not always a given- such as disaster response, or just places
> where the phone signal is a bit rubbish (the Welsh Mountains or the Lake
> District in the UK for example). Will FWTools et al still exist in their
> current format? Or do I have to figure out how to make OSGeoFW work

OSGeoFW -> OSGeo4W   :-)

> portably? :-)
> 

Jo,

My intention is to discontinue FWTools at some point, or at least narrow
it's focus to delivery particular custom capabilities to my clients.

The OSGeo4W packages can be pretty easily used to compose other sorts of
installers, or distributions for windows.  That, is that packages are
just .tar.bz2 files which have to be unpacked in a particular place, and
a few packages have post install scripts to run to fix things up a bit.

So a few options exist:

  1) There is no reason the whole OSGeo4W repository can't be on a
     CD (or soon DVD) and the installer setup to install from that.

  2) Once a C:\OSGeo4W tree is setup, it should generally be possible
     to just copy it to other machines as long as it is in the same place.
     This is what I will advise some of my clients that need to deploy the
     same tree on many windows servers.

Do you have a pointer to notes on how you setup Portable GIS?   I've only
paid passing attention to your efforts so far, but I'd like to ensure you
can provide something similar based on OSGeo4W.

I think the hardest thing will be addressing changes to various built
in paths for OSGeo4W that will change depending on what drive letter
the USB key ends up being assigned to.  OSGeo4W takes the approach that
packages can run post install scripts to update paths in stuff like the
apache config or shell scripts (bat files).

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org