archeos-db metapackage

[Denis Francisci]

Hi all,
I agree with Luca about DB software selection in ArcheOS. Every single
software listed by Luca is important for archeologists. I would like
to add some information about PGdesigner and Spatialite:
- PGdesigner is a tool for designing databases, for making a "plan" of
tables, relations, views etc. It's usefull for DB experts, but also
for newbies. It is not highly necessary, but IMHO we have to keep it
in ArcheOS.
- Spatialite is the spatial extension of Sqlite (like Postgis for
Postgres). Spatialite-GUI is a GUI for Sqlite/Spatialite and
Spatialite-GIS is a simple GIS that manages data from Spatialite. I
think these 2 last applications are not highly necessary:
Spatialite-GUI can be replaced by SQLite Data Browser or Sqlite
Manager (a very usefull extension in Iceweasel/Firefox);
Spatialite-GIS is replaced by QGIS because spatialite data are
readable in QGIS. The problem could be that debian packages for
Spatialite-GUI and Spatialite-GIS don't exist (in ArcheOS 4 I packaged
these softwares...): so an user interesting in them could have
difficulties to install them. Maybe we can not install  Spatialite-GUI
and Spatialite-GIS but keep them in repository...could be a solution?
Ciao

Denis

2013/1/21 luca.bezzi <luca.bezzi@arc-team.com>:
>  HI Fabrizio,
> you are right to keep ArcheOS image small, but, IMHO, database package (as
> well as GIS and statistics) is very important for archaeologists. Regarding
> the db in Caesar this is the situation (at least as I see it...):
>
> Starting from the most important:
>
> 1) PostgreSQL ---> the main software, very important to build high
> performance databases both in local and in remote. It has many pros, but one
> of the best thing of this software is the possibility to be connected with
> GRASS (GIS). Regarding his "history" in ArcheOS, we chose Postgres instead
> MySQL because of its license. When we started MySQL had no GPL, but another
> OS license and for professional use they asked the payment of a fee (now I
> think also MySQL is using GPL). Of course some people reported us that it
> would be better to insert also MySQL in ArcheOS, but it would be redundant
> and Postgres developed faster and better in the last years (that's just my
> opinion).
>
> 2) PostGIS ---> spatial extension of Postgres. It is iportant for an
> interaction with different GIS. In our work I would say it is necessary.
>
> 3) pgAdmin3 -->  administration and development platform for Postgres.
> Important to let people work with a GUI (a lot of archaeologist does not
> like terminals...)
>
> 4) phpPgAdmin --> similar to pgAdmin, but web-based, useful to build web
> tools (webgis and webdb is another important topic in archeology, especially
> to open archeological data)
>
> 5) PGDesigner --> to tell the truth I do not remember very well why we
> insert also this software. We had a discussion about it during the past
> release of ArcheOS and I think the reason was that it does something that
> pgAdmin does not do, but pgAdmin is better for other thing, so the best wast
> to keep both of the software...
>
> That was about POstgres; since ArcheOS 4 we implemented also SQLite tools,
> which many archaeologists find very useful. I guess that the point is that
> when someone has to build a very complex db, maybe web-based, which has to
> manage a lot of users, than he will use Postgers and postgres related stuff;
> when someone just need a simpler db (maybe with one single user), very
> portable (just one file to copy and paste from one computer to another), tha
> he can use SQLite and related stuff. It is something that became very
> popular in archeology in the last couple of years, but in my opinion, it
> cannot replace POstgres. Anyway this should be the situation:
>
> 6) SQLite --> the main software. Useful for portable db
>
> 7) SQLite Data Browser --> a GUI editor for newbies and people who is not
> really comfortable with terminals
>
>  8) Spatialite --> spatial extension (same as for Postgres)
>
> 9) Spatialite GUI --> GUI (same as befor)
>
> 10) Spatialite GIS --> this is a very simple GIS build on top of Spatialie.
> maybe in case we should move this entry in GIS. I don't remember why we
> added it to ArcheOS CAesar, but I think because is a fast tool for not very
> complex gis (let's say database based). I think was an issue from Denis,
> maybe he can explain better waht are the potentialities o f this software
>
> 11) Tellico --> just a simple tool to keep order in a book library. It does
> more or less the same things that Zotero, which looks better. We could
> replace it with Zotero, so to optimize the db section.
>
> So that's just my point of view (I am not even a db specialist...). What do
> you think about it?
>  Just another consideration: normally in ArcheOS we chose the way to
> implement both very powerful but complex software (for the professional
> needs of expert users) and less powerful, but more user friendly
> applications (to help archaeologists entering the FLOSS world). In my
> opinion, all he GUI stuff of db section are important for newbies, if we
> will take them away, a lot of people will not use this tools. In this case
> Postgres is the powerful, but complex softawre and Spatialite is the
> simpler, but more user friendly software. Moreover if an archaeologist has a
> simple project, maybe he will use spatialite also when he is expert in
> postgres, just to keep simple his life :).
>
> Sorry for the long email, that's just my opinion, it would be nice to hear
> what more expert people in database thinks about it.
>
> Greetings
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: fab.furnari@gmail.com
> To: "luca.bezzi" luca.bezzi@arc-team.com
> Cc: archeos-dev@lists.linux.it
> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:50:52 +0100
> Subject: Re: archeos-db metapackage
>
>> Hi, I agree to keep the software we used in Caesar, but we should remember
>> that each software we automatically include into Theodoric must be
>> motivated: which software uses it as backend?
>> I mean, we could include every single database in the Debian repository
>> but this let the image grow, could open potential security issue, and we
>> definitely should support it into some tutorial or documentation page.
>> So I think that if a database is not needed specifically by a software
>> included in ArcheOS, or is not packaged by us, we should keep it available
>> from the repository and let the user the choice to install it or not...
>
>> On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 6:32 PM, luca.bezzi <luca.bezzi@arc-team.com>
>> wrote:
>> HI all,
>> we are going on with the development of ArcheOS Theodoric, thanks also to
>> the big help of Romain Janvier, who joined the project and already packaged
>> a lot of software :).
>
>> Regarding software selection and metapackages:
>
>> Actually we can considered close the archeos-cad metapackage, which
>> includes LibreCAD and FreeCAD. Thanks to the help of Alessandro Camiz, who
>> tried BRLCAD, we decided to not include (by now) this other CAD in ArcheOS.
>> It looks like it is a little bit too complex for
>> archaeological/architectural needs. Anyway we will keep it under
>> observation, to see if there are specific projects in which it is necessary
>> to work with such a CAD.
>>
>> We would like now to go on with the next metapackage: archeos-db
>> (database).
>> The old (ArcheOS Caesar) software list is:
>
>> 1) pgadmin3
>> 2) phpPgAdmin
>> 3) pgDesigner
>> 4) PostgreSQL
>> 5) PostGIS
>> 6) sqlite3
>> 7) SQLite Data Browser
>> 8) spatialite
>> 9) spatialite-gui
>> 10) spatialite-gis
>> 11)  Tellico
>> 12) Zotero (as iceweasel extension)
>>
>> If you have any suggestion about this metapackage, please send a mail in
>> this mailing list during the next two weeks. We have already some feedback
>> from Romain:
>>
>> 1) software to add --> MongoDB (http://www.mongodb.org/), a scalable,
>> high-performance, open source NoSQL database
>>
>> 2) better software selection --> replace Tellico with a Zotero standalone
>> version (less invasive than in the browser and with a specific menu entry).
>> The two software are pretty similar, but Zotero is more "academic".
>>
>> So let us know what you think about it. As usual, for a direct interaction
>> during ArcheOS development, you can use our IRC channel (server: FreeNode;
>> channel: #archeos).
>
>> Ciao.
>
>
>
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>
>
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