archeos-db metapackage

Mon Jan 21 09:36:08 CET 2013

 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 db7) 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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