I get tons of emails from people asking where they can get free ArcView licenses for home use. People really want to work with GIS at home as well as at work which makes sense to me. I’ve always pointed folks to QGIS and other tools, but Matt Perry has a wonderful and easy way to most of the important open source GIS tools on Ubuntu with just a couple of commands.
just keeps getting easier and easier to get a fully functional open source GIS workstation up and running thanks to Ubuntu. The following instructions will take your vanilla installation of Ubuntu 7.10 and add the following top-notch desktop GIS applications: Postgresql/PostGIS : a relational database with vector spatial data handling GRASS : A full blown GIS analysis toolset Quantum GIS: A user-friendly graphical GIS application GDAL, Proj, Geos : Libraries and utilities for processing spatial data Mapserver : web mapping program and utilites Python bindings for QGIS, mapserver and GDAL GPSBabel : for converting between various GPS formats R : a high-end statistics package with spatial capabilities GMT : the Generic Mapping Tools for automated high-quality map output
Download Ubuntu, install, run a simple command, enjoy GIS for free. Seems like a great solution to me!
Look how fun OSGeo is!
32 Comments
As a fluke a year ago, I did an advanced Google search for the ArcGIS license file extension (*.esu9) and actually found several that were on unsecured servers readily available for copying.
/Don’t worry ESRI police, I don’t even have your software on my laptop. I’m a PM and not trusted with doing real work.
Also, have a look at debian-gis. AFAIK, it provides the same service as Ubuntu’s.
I installed Ubuntu on a spare desktop just so I could play about with Grass. Never really got that involved with Grass as couldnt use it at work. Will try QGIS…
Hey now, you could just as easily install all those programs on Windows!
This sounds all good albeit a bit geeky. Don’t have time to chase down all this and install it how do you find the time?
I don’t think it should take too long to get all that installed. Since Ubuntu is Debian-based, you can use the “apt-get” command to get all the software from the central repositories. From the article, you only need one (rather long) command:
sudo apt-get -y install qgis grass qgis-plugin-grass mapserver-bin gdal-bin cgi-mapserver python-qt4 python-sip4 python-gdal python-mapscript gmt gmt-coastline-data r-recommended gpsbabel shapelib libgdal1-1.4.0-grass
That should install all the software you need. Matthew outlines a few other steps you can go through to update your QGIS install to the Release Candidate version 0.9 (apt-get will pull the stable version – 0.8).
The biggie that he doesn’t cover is PostGIS, but that’s not that hard to get up and running on Ubuntu either.
Having trouble installing, pasted the command into a terminal, and receive the following:Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done Note, selecting gmt-coast-low instead of gmt-coastline-data E: Couldn’t find package libgdal1-1.4.0-grass jakc@jakc-Ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get -y install qgis grass qgis-plugin-grass mapserver-bin gdal-bin cgi-mapserver\
You need to take the \ and > out. It’s concatanating those two lines and their is no space between cgi-mapserver and python-qt4
Use this line from Phil:
sudo apt-get -y install qgis grass qgis-plugin-grass mapserver-bin gdal-bin cgi-mapserver python-qt4 python-sip4 python-gdal python-mapscript gmt gmt-coastline-data r-recommended gpsbabel shapelib libgdal1-1.4.0-grass
thanks, but now its returning : E: Couldn’t find package libgdal1-1.4.0-grass
I already have grass installed, maybe this is the issue?
…And this is why the Linux user share is at less than 1%.
“I get tons of emails from people asking where they can get free ArcView licenses for home use.”
suggesting an open source solution is -not- going to answer these tons of e-mails. People want ArcView at home because that is what they use at work and they want to learn it.
ESRI has 60 day eval copies that you can use. I think a better suggestion would be to have people create a VirtualPC image with ArcGIS eval at home and just recycle it every 60 days.
Our solution for people that want to do work -not learn- is to provide them ArcGIS via Citrix at home. I think ESRI even has a test Citrix environment that people can connect to and learn with.
@Wallis: If people want to do GIS at home, as opposed to doing ArcGIS at home, they can get Manifold 80.0 personal for 245$ instead of trying to break licensing terms by running VirtualPC image with a eval version of ArcView. They also get a lot more functionality that way for quite a small investment.
There is other free GIS program very good made in Java that it’s downloadable for Linux, MacOS and Windows called gvSIG http://www.gvsig.gva.es
It wants to become an ArcGIS substitute and it’s improving day by day
Long life the opensource….
ok, so the next time people “want to do GIS at home” ask them to expound a little bit and explain if they mean -any GIS- or ArcGIS. I think the answer will often be the latter.
ESRI is -incredibly- lienient on their licensing. The only thing they need to do to put the nail in the coffin of these alternatives is offer a home use licensing program like Microsoft does for Office.
Oh, and my VPC suggestion doesn’t break any licensing terms. Go read the license.
I’m going to give this Ubuntu stack a whirl. I’ve got an old computer and a lot of curiousity about Ubuntu and GRASS (which I haven’t been able to get to work on Windows).
I downloaded a product called SAGA GIS from SourceForge a good while ago. I haven’t used it much, and it doesn’t support many formats (primarily shapefiles on the vector side), but it seems to offer the basics and more. Installation is simple – download, unzip, and run the exe file in the saga_vc folder.
To RDBM or not to RDBM
Ask the question does GIS = SHAPEFILE viewers or editors. We must remember the function of a GIS package is to compliment a database by illustrating the geographical extent of the data. Corporate database aren’t developed with flat tables (Shapefiles) but with multiple tables, hence the word Relational Database Management System (RDBM). The term RDBM is what defines GIS and I haven’t seen any opensource GIS package even touching this aspect. There are standards to which open source should conform, my personal felling is that the name/term GIS should only be used when a package conforms to certain functions and not just viewing shapefiles.
Even though Arcview is expensive it still gives you great database power that is user friendly, we must remember the biggest market for these packages are low-end users that requires easy to use apps .
Sarel
I would like to see these packages come together in the future. I am currently working on producing a fully functional GIS package with portgres/postgis (preconfigured) being installed in one instance together with QGIS and Mapserver on Windows (On a CD/DVD).
ArcView 3.# isn’t all that expensive if you know where to look. One can find a copy for about $5 US in Pakistan.
ArcInfo for about $10 US, but it’s useless unless one can make their own dongle or tie into a license manager.
Ooo, we are talking about legal means…..hmmm.
KoS
fortunately FLEXlm doesn’t span to the Internet very well or I think a lot of people would tap into exposed license servers.
Can we elaborate on the VirtualPC option? Do we have to install on a fresh XP box each time. Or do we just have a copy that has it installed and just not activated. Because I would like to ARCGIS at home. Actually I would like to ARCGIS.net at home. When will ESRI support VS2008 anybody know?
ArcGIS.net? What are you referring to? ArcGIS has .NET support yes….
As far as VPC support. Build yourself an XP image, install ArcGIS into it, save as a VHD file. Reload as necessary. You will need a 60-day eval of ArcGIS and an XP license. Keep in mind that you have to reregister the eval each time you restore back the VHD.
J Wallis Sorry for the confusion. I mostly develop .net tools for ArcGIS hence the ARCGIS.net I can always work on the .net part of my stuff at home but if I want to test out some ArcGIS code at home I can’t because I don’t have the license. As long as I just have to register the eval each time and not install ESRI I am game for the VPC stuff. Thanks for the info. That will be very usefull.
If you have floating licenses of ArcGIS at work and VPN, you may be able to connect to your license manager over the internet. Alternatively, I’ve used VPN + Remote Desktop to use ArcGIS on my Mac from home. It’s not the most ideal setup, but it at least I can get work done. This is assuming that you have ArcGIS at work… If not, you’ll need to try something else. If you just want to LEARN ArcGIS, I believe ESRI sells student copies of ArcGIS ArcView for around $250 (at least I’m pretty sure that was the case around 4 years ago).
I have ArcGIS at work but no vpn access. My last place I had a laptop and a vpn which was nice because I only needed to get the license from the office. Thanks again.
Despite the wet blanket known as J. Wallis (ESRI employee or just trying to justify that last check to Redlands?) has to say open source GIS applications are used by the leaders in research circles- and in some gov. agencies.
I have been using GRASS, PostGIS, R, and GMT for all of my GIS and mapping needs for the last 3 years– on a Debian Linux machine. I am able to use the same software on Linux machines, Windows machines, and Macs. If you are interested in something like this join one of the many mailing lists and start asking questions.
GRASS GIS Generic Mapping Tools R stats QGIS PostGIS
… lots more!
@Dylan
if you can’t post something constructive without inserting a personal slight then you should step away from the keyboard.
After the installation, how do you initiate the programs in Ubuntu, e.g. how do I fire up any of the GIS tools downloaded. I have followed all the above steps, but I can not seem to find where it installed it, in order for me to try it out.
These are some great posts! I am learning a lot. I’ve been a geomatics specialist for 4 years now and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the technology is evolving.
I’ve tried numerous open-source GIS packages (I am trying to get away from ESRI, due to the ridiculuousness of the cost) and I have to agree with Miguel that gvSIG is among the best I have tried. Nothing against QGIS, except that the data must be on a local machine and that dramatically lessens its usefulness. MapWindow GIS is great as well because of its activeX component.
I guess my question is where is the program files equivalent in ubuntu?
gvSIG…and/plus Sextante, 170 functions: analysis and calculus tools for raster layers, basic hydrological analysis, image processing, geostatistics, rasterization and interpolation, …
Download Sextante: http://campusvirtual.unex.es/cala/file.php/146/sextante_gvsig_0_1.jar
URL: http://www.sextantegis.com/
@ Janie T For Grass, I load it up via a terminal window and typing grass61. I have to admit, I am struggling with adapting from the typical Windows environment and switching to Ubuntu. However, there seems to be a lot of support for Ubuntu, so will continue the struggle.
@JC – thanks for the correction to the lines-o’-code.
now i’ve got a snazzy GIS setup on my 1999 Dell XPST500.
happy day after GIS day all!
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