[GRASS5] WinGRASS binaries on itc.it site incorrectly compiled

I've been getting a series of lab computers ready for my spatial technologies class to use with GRASS. This involved setting up a couple of PC's so far with Cygwin and WinGRASS.

I've run into a couple of problems

1st. there is still a problem in getting a monitor to display using any of the TclTk menu system, including the display manager. I've corresponded with Glynn Clements about it and have a work around, that involves opening all monitors from the command line using d.mon prior to doing anything else. He seems to have a good idea of what the problem is. Given the discussions about releasing 5.3 (which I generally agree with), it will be worthwhile to continue to look into a way to solve the xdisplay issues with WinGRASS.

The 2nd problem is (hopefully) easily fixed. Currently NVIZ won't work using the available binaries for GRASS 5.0.3. To make sure I have the most recent set, I re-downloaded and installed the binaries from the Trento (grass.itc.it) site yesterday. These are dated 11 November 2003. It seems that they have been compiled with a series of unneeded and even problematic Cygwin dependencies.

When I tried NVIZ, it started to open, but generated the following error:

Error window title:
      NVWISH 2.2 - unable to find component
Error window contents:
      This application has failed to start because pq.dll was not found. Re-installing this application may fix this problem.

Checking the Cygwin site shows that this refers to a dll that installs with postgreSQL. Since it could be useful to have postgreSQL installed for GRASS anyway, I installed it and re-ran GRASS and NVIZ.

It then said it couldn't find cygcrypt-0.dll. It turns out that this is from "crypt", an encryption package for Cygwin. I installed it and re-ran GRASS and NVIZ.

THEN is couldn't find tcl84.dll. I checked on the Cygwin site once again and found that this is indeed a dll for the Cygwin installation of TclTk. It is the version of TclTk that we are NOT supposed to install because WinGRASS will not work with it (a version of TclTk 8.3 that does work with GRASS is provided on the WinGRASS site).

At this point, I decided to stop and contact the list. Apparently, whoever compiled this version of GRASS may have installed everything (?) from Cygwin and somehow linked it to the GRASS compilation.

The best thing seems to be to recompile 5.0.3 correctly without all the dependencies, and repost it. I mainly work on a Mac and don't (yet?) have the ability to compile for Cygwin from source. Hopefully someone with Windows and a PC can do this. Thanks much.

Michael Barton

_____________________________
C. Michael Barton, Professor & Curator
Department of Anthropology
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402

Phone: 480-965-6262
Fax: 480-965-7671

Hi Michael.

The best thing seems to be to recompile 5.0.3 correctly without all the dependencies, and repost it. I mainly work on a Mac and don't (yet?) have the ability to compile for Cygwin from source. Hopefully someone with Windows and a PC can do this. Thanks much.

Looking at the dates on these packages it looks like the last one I built and tested was 5.02 as I was overseas in November when the 5.03 one was built. I'll try and build a Cygwin 5.03 early this week and then the 5.3 and 5.7 branches the following week unless everyone is happy with the 5.7 that Richard Greenwood has very kindly provided.
Am I right in understanding, Michael, that you will be happy with NVIZ + Postgres? (I haven't the time to build and test multiple variations of any particular version number, and I think it is more useful to supply the most complete feature set possible.)

Cheers

Mike Thomas.

Michael,

in these minutes an update of 5.0.3-wingrass/Xdriver is
running. I am downloading the version from Rich Greenwood.

Should be there in 1-2hs from now..

Maybe it solves various problems for the wingrass/Xdriver users.
The previous version I have moved out of web space, but
kept outside.

Markus