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GRASS GIS Port to AmigaOS/Amithlon

What's that about?

GRASS GIS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is an Open Source, free software Geographical Information System (GIS) with raster, topological vector, image processing, and graphics production functionality that operates on various platforms through a graphical user interface and shell in X-Windows. It is released under GNU General Public License (GPL). The project will involve porting GRASS 5.x to AmigaOS but the requirement is that is must also run on Amithlon, a low-level Amiga emulator for current x86 PCs.

Yes, all this is fine, but why I'm doing it (aka don't you have a better things to do)? There are a number of reasons, but let's say:Just to prove Amiga is far from dead.
Currently, there is no GIS software available for Amiga platforms.
To prove this is possible (although I'm leaving this open to an argument).
Personally, to learn new things and gain more experience in software development.

This project is named AmiGIS and actual GRASS port to AmigaOS/Amithlon will be called AmiGRASS. I guess, these names speak for themselves.

The AmiGIS Project Team

At the present, this is one-person project. I do have a great deal of background in GIS and although I like to 'fiddle' in C, I'm by no means an accomplished programmer. Therefore, I'm looking for any help I can get, especially from those out there who had experience in porting large applications to AmigaOS. If you have some free time on your hands, I welcome you to join the AmiGIS Team - no strings attached.

Porting Methodology and Resources

GRASS GIS Distribution

The Official Home of GRASS GIS is at the Baylor University, Waco, Texas. GRASS 5.0 (current) pre-release 3 source distribution can be obtained from one of the mirrors (Australia)

http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/grass/grass/grass5/source/

Software Development Resources

The minimum requirements to compile GRASS 5.x are listed in the following table.

Required components

Linux

AmigaOS (possible) equivalent port

Download location

C-compiler (cc, gcc, egcs)

gcc v2.7.0

GNU make

make v3.68

Compression library (zlib)

Documentation

zlib v1.0.4

Location

Lexical analyzer generator (flex)

Documentation

flex v2.5.4

Location

Parser generator (yacc, bison)

Documentation

bison v1.25

Location

New curses library (libncurses4.x/5.x)

Documentation

ncurses v1.9.9e

Location

X11 window system for graphical output, development libraries

Documentation

libX11gcc, libX11

Location Location

GNU database manager library (dgm/gdbm dbm.h)

Documentation

gdbm v1.7.3

Location

Other resources may be available from the Aminet main site in the USA.

Progress Report

July, 4
The first AmiGIS project web page is now completed and uploaded to Yahoo! GeoCities (not much at the moment, but it is a good start). I have tested my Wintel computer for Amithlon compatibility as it is at the bare minimum hardware specs - Pentium III 450 MHz, 128 Mb RAM, 16 Mb nVidia TNT (yes, I know, rather dated by today's standards). The test boot images can be obtained from here. It seems, I will be able to run Amithlon on the current setup. I'm still awaiting for the official Amithlon 2.0 release.

July, 3
Started work on this web site. Subscribed to the Amithlon Group hosted by the Yahoo! web site. Researched what's already available from the Aminet archive.

July, 2
Completed development of the conceptual idea, signifying the 'official' beginning of the work on AmiGRASS.

Contact

Dmitar Butrovski e-mail (please put "AmiGRASS" somewhere in the e-mail title).