Another cool open source project that I have become a part of (as a QGIS packager and tester) is the OSGeo-Live project.  The OSGeo-Live project is a live DVD/USB/Virtual Machine built on xUbuntu(striped down Ubuntu linux) that has a lot of cool open source geo spatial programs all set up and ready to use.

The OSGeo-Live project contains:

  • Browser clients
  • A small sample of crisis management software
  • All the popular database engines (PostGIS, SpaitalLite etc)
  • Pretty much all the open source desktop GIS apps (QGIS, uDig etc)
  • Open Source GPS navigation apps and globes.
  • A collection of handy spatial tools
  • A ready to go web services ready to try in your browser or desktop GIS.
  • Some sample data to get started with for each project
  • And quick starts for each program.

The full list of software contained on the OSGeo-Live project can be found at http://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/overview.html

This is a good project if you want to get into the OSGeo tools and experiment but don’t want to install them on main machine until you know what you need.

As it is a live DVD/USB/Virtual Machine some apps will run slower than what they do on a native install but overall the speed is usable and good enough for testing.

Even better is that it was born in Australia :)

The project is also commercial supported by a Australian company http://lisasoft.com

So give it a try if you are interested in the OSGeo movement, which you should be if you are reading my blog :)


Filed under: Open Source, qgis Tagged: gdal, gis, mapping, Open Source, osgeo, osgeo-live, OSS, Quantum GIS

by Nathan at 7:29 AM under gdal , gis , mapping , open source , osgeo , osgeo-live , oss , qgis , quantum gis (Comments)