Installing Xastir on FreeBSD
There is an Xastir port in the Xastir ports system
The port in the ports system is currently at 2.2.2, which is the last
release we made. The port maintainer is aware that we are ready to
release a new one soon, and will get the port updated promptly after
we do.
To install it, simply do the following:
Install a binary package
sudo pkg install comms/xastir
which will install all of the dependent libraries and headers Xastir
needs from binary packages, then install Xastir from a binary package.
OR:
Use the ports collection to install from source
Alternatively, you can use the ports system if you keep your ports
tree up to date (see
https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/ports/#ports-using). As
root (su or sudo -i):
cd /usr/ports/comms/xastir
make install clean
This will cause all libraries and headers needed by Xastir to be
installed first (from source code), then will download the source code
for an Xastir release and build it (just as you would have).
Note that you'll get the latest release that the ports maintainer has
set up for the port, not the latest code from github.
The port will install all required dependent libraries for a full
build of Xastir (with GPSMan available as a non-default option you can
select at the time you install the port).
Should you decide to build from source after already installing the port
Unlike Linux, FreeBSD installs all of its ports/packages into
/usr/local just as you would if you had built it yourself. Thus,
installing the FreeBSD port does NOT cause problems if you later
decide to switch to a source build --- all of the paths in your config
files will already be correct. You can simply remove the
port-installed version with:
pkg delete comms/xastir
This will remove all the files installed by the port, but if you have
added maps and other information to /usr/local/share/xastir, none of
those files will be deleted --- the delete operation only deletes
files it knows it installed and only removes directories that are
empty when it finishes. Thus this is safe to do even if you have
added to the maps directory.
After removing the port-installed code you can then just install
directly from source. Your initial install of the port will have
installed all the dependent libraries already, so you can skip those steps.
Installing from source
Even though FreeBSD has a reasonably maintained Xastir port, it is
always going to be a release version. To stay on top of Xastir
development and always get the latest code, even before a release, you
are still better off building it yourself from source.
Installing dependent libraries
Use the "pkg install" command to install packages that Xastir needs.
This command will install everything needed for a full build.
sudo pkg install -y devel/autoconf devel/automake devel/shapelib graphics/tiff devel/pcre2 graphics/GraphicsMagick graphics/libgeotiff ftp/curl databases/db18 lang/gcc13 x11-toolkits/open-motif audio/festival devel/libcjson devel/git
You must use gcc to compile Xastir with GraphicsMagick, as you
cannot link GraphicsMagick using the default Clang compiler. You must
specify this by adding a CC setting to configure. At the time I'm writing this the latest version of gcc is version 13, so I'm using gcc13.
You must tell Xastir's configure to look in /usr/local/lib and
/usr/local/include/db18 for Berkeley libraries and headers. Use the
"--with-bdb-incdir" and "--with-bdb-libdir" flags.
This configure line should do the trick:
/path/to/Xastir/configure --with-bdb-incdir=/usr/local/include/db18 --with-bdb-libdir=/usr/local/lib CFLAGS="-O2 -g" CC=gcc13
where "/path/to" is the path to wherever you actually unpacked the
Xastir source code.
Everything else is per the general building guidance
The remaining steps of building Xastir are exactly as provided in
Installing Xastir.
Differences from Linux package management
FreeBSD usually doesn't break packages up into "lib" and "dev" and
"bin" bits --- if you install a package, you get all of that stuff in
one package.
A few additional tools you might want to install
The list above will get you an Xastir that is fully functional with
all the optional features that actually work on FreeBSD. However, if
you are doing a lot of advanced mapping manipulation
you might want a few extra packages
- graphics/gdal: This installs the GDAL package that
includes a number of useful tools for manipulating map data.
- graphics/py-gdal: This is an exception of FreeBSD breaking up a single
package into multiple bits. gdal source code comes with a number of
python tools, and those are NOT installed by the "gdal" package.
This package installs those.
- graphics/qgis: For really advanced map manipulation, this tool
provides a full-featured graphical GIS (especially when coupled
with the databases/grass8 package). Be prepared for a steep
learning curve if you actually need this package.
How were these instructions tested?
The Xastir team has an automated testing setup on Github that checks
the Xastir build on several different systems. FreeBSD is one of
them. This process launches a vanilla FreeBSD virtual machine,
executes the pkg install command above, then configures and builds
Xastir from source.
This process is run every time any change is made to the Xastir code.
We also check it regularly by hand
One of the Xastir developers does all of his work on a FreeBSD machine
and the installed packages required are those he had to install on his
own machine.
