Re: [udig-devel] udig-1.2 for linux and mac

["Craig Taverner" <udig@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I second this idea. But there is a catch. At least for Ubuntu, and I suspect for all (most) other linux distributions, the suppliers do not directly support packages that are not commodity (widely used). Less commonly used packages (which uDIG would be), are usually supported by community volunteers. In Ubuntu's case, there is a 'masters of the universe' group of people responsible for re-packaging applications for the distributions 'universe' set (which means applications not officially part of the core distribution, but still available for easy install/upgrade through the package manager).

What this boils down to is we need a few volunteers from the uDIG community to perform this role for each distribution: repackaging each new uDIG release in the appropriate format with appropriate dependencies, and publish to the relevant download sites/indices.

I could imagine performing this role for Ubuntu, but am not able to guarantee I will have the time to commit. In addition, I'm not aware of all requirements for admission to the 'masters of the universe'. I have no idea what other distributions require.

If we do go ahead with this, it will result in increased popularity for sure. Modern linux users really like their apps to be properly supported by the OS distribution, for the reasons Harry mentions.

Cheers, Craig

P.S. In an ideal world, uDIG would be made of a number of smaller packages, java, jai-imageio, eclipse, geotools, udig. But I think udig is a long way from being easily fragmented like that.

P.P.S. I just saw Andrea Aime comment, but think it is easy enough to require sun-java6 explicitly as a dependency

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Harry Bullen <hbullen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Personally I really, really dislike the idea of asking someone
download your copy of the jre in linux.  Because all popular distos
now have very good package managment it is much better to say do
apt-get install jai-imageio then to force someone to download another
whole jre.  Besides being a time consuming waste of bandwidth it
prevents the user form upgrading.  The current version of java
1.6.0_11 while we are still force everyone to use 1.6.0_04.  This
would be even worse if there had been a major security vulnerability
discovered in java.  A user could upgrade their regular java an think
they are safe and then still be affected by the problem in the uDig
jre.  So actually the best thing to do would be to submit udig to the
various distros mainlly Debian and Red Hat (and Gentoo)  and then
people can just go "sudo apt-get insall udig" to install udig.

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I have a few reports back that the linux download provided below does not
> work.
>
> I expect that it probably wants a jre/ folder to be copied into the udig
> folder...or for Java to be available on the system?
>
> I would like to ask someone to try .....
> 1. download the linux zip
> 2. unzip it
> 3. unzip the following jre into it
> http://udig.refractions.net/files/downloads/jre/jre1.6.0_04.linux.x86.zip
>
> Actually one of the fun parts of uDig 1.2 is all the image-io ext stuff
> being included in the jre; I have this available for the windows users but
> we will need someone with access to linux to bundle everything up for the
> linux community as per the instructions here:
> http://udig.refractions.net/confluence/display/ADMIN/04+Java+Runtime+Environment
>
> Jody
> Silvia Franceschi wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Jody,
>> I downloaded the mac version and it started, so I can start also to do the
>> walkthroug.
>>
>> Thanks for the big work you all are doing in uDig...
>>
>> Silvia
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett@xxxxxxxxx
>> <mailto:jody.garnett@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>
>>    During todays informal IRC chat (logs posted?) it was mentioned
>>    that Silvia was stuck not being able to help until a linux or mac
>>    release was made of uDig 1.2.
>>    I had a go during the IRC chat and failed - because some kind of
>>    equnox launcher was not "found" in my target platform...
>>
>>    So here we go:
>>    -
>>
>>  http://udig.refractions.net/files/downloads/udig-1.2-M1.linux.gtk.x86.zip
>>    -
>>
>>  http://udig.refractions.net/files/downloads/udig-1.2-M1.macosx.carbon.x86.zip
>>
>>    (Those files are uploading now ... no idea how long that will take)
>>
>>    Turns out that although it was not actually my eclipse install -
>>    which was my fear. Eclipse 3.4 has a new check box on the target
>>    platform definition screen which controls how all the jars are
>>    discovered- by default it ignores everything that does not work on
>>    your machine - so the linux launcher was not included for me even
>>    though I followed all the same steps as before.
>>
>>    Un checking this box returned things to normal; and I was able to
>>    make the linux and mac release.
>>
>>
>>
>>    We need to update the ADMIN wiki space on defining a target
>>    platform to include this step,
>>    Jody
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
>> http://udig.refractions.net
>> http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
> http://udig.refractions.net
> http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
>

--
Harry William Bullen IV

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