GRASS GIS

Version: 6.4.0svn ​r40852 (as of 7 Feb 2009)

User Notes

• A desktop raster/vector GIS system (command line and graphical user interface)
• Main site: ​http://grass.osgeo.org/
• Current packaging should be considered a preliminary proof-of-concept.
• The available interfaces are the new wxPython GUI, the older Tcl/Tk GUI GIS manager (GIS.m), and a plain text curses DOS box command prompt (DOS box has no access to display monitors).
• First time users should explore the ​first steps tutorial after installing.

Installation

• Get the ​OSGeo4W Installer. (400k network-installer, full download is approx 60-80mb)
  • Generic installer help can be found on the main OSGeo4W wiki page.
• For the moment GRASS is available in the "advanced" install. After a period of testing it may be moved to the "express" section. All other required packages are auto-selected during the installation.

• Change the default help browser: edit C:\OSGeo4W\etc\ini\grass.bat and change the GRASS_HTML_BROWSER line to be like:

  set GRASS_HTML_BROWSER=%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
  

Usage

The application can be run through:

• a desktop shortcut (icon)
• a menu shortcut
• its executable osgeo4w\apps\grass-6.4.X\bin\grass64.bat
• on the osgeo4w shell through the grass64.bat

To start GRASS with graphical user interface, click on the desktop icon.

How to get command line:

• Start the osgeo4w shell. Then type:

     grass64 -text
  

How to start GRASS with the new wxPython GUI:

• Start the osgeo4w shell. Then type:

     grass64 -wxpython
  

Alternatively from the Tcl/Tk GUI go to Config -> GRASS working environment -> Change settings -> GRASS variable to set -> "GRASS_GUI=wxpython" If it doesn't work, make sure that python is in the path.

Later Installation Update

• It is sufficient to re-run the installer which fetches the list of packages to then suggest available updates for the individual packages.

Lab Installation as offline set of packages

While the OSGeo4W installer is nice for individual installs, it may be problematic for institutional lab installs, where IT managers want to have stand alone applications that they can test, install, and remove easily. To install OSGeo4W-GRASS package as stand alone, see

• How do I perform an offline or computer lab install?
• and ​Unattended install of QGIS (et al) from OSGeo4W

• see also the non-OSGeo4W ​stand alone installer for WinGRASS

TODO

• Test, test test!

Errata

• While the GRASS libraries and modules are typically extremely well tested and stable, this new Windows install package is not. Because we are very confident in the underlying GIS code we hope that any problems due to the new Windows packaging efforts will be superficial and quickly resolved. You can help this process by reporting bugs: if it seems to be the fault of the installer report bugs to the OSGeo4W bug tracker, if it seems to be the fault of GRASS, report bugs to the ​GRASS bug tracker. You will need to create yourself an ​OSGeo ID to submit and comment on bugs. Bugs don't get fixed unless people point them out! It is expected that some issues related to spaces in the path names still exist, but we hope to have found most of these by now. Also it is likely that the wxPython GUI still has some gremlins in it, please help us find and fix them by reporting any errors you come across! Typically once found they are easy to fix. You can help to find spaces-in-the-path bugs by installing OSGeo4W into "Program Files\OSGeo4W" and setting the GRASS data directory to "Documents and Settings\username".

• If a bunch of errors appear in the DOS command window (e.g. "Traceback ... wxgui.py, line 1234") you can cut and paste these to a text file or bug report by right-clicking on the window and selecting "Mark". Scroll up to the top of the text and drag the highlight box down over the text with the left mouse button. When you are done highlighting right click. You can then Paste the text from the clipboard.

• GRASS "monitors" are not present in this build due to an unresolved ​problem replacing ​Unix-domain sockets ​with pipes or TCP sockets and so some interactive modules which require them, such as i.class and i.ortho.photo, will not work. You will need to use a Cygwin build for Windows to use those modules or help port them to the new multi-platform wxPython GUI.

• See also ​keyword: wingrass tickets in the main GRASS bug tracker

• Probably more ...

See also the ​known issues wiki page.

Open Tickets

#465

Add gdal-grass plugin to OSGeo4W

#749

Launch Grass GUI problem

#799

Add git to OSGeo4W

Closed Tickets

#37

grass: wxpython gui issues

#44

Gdal/Proj problems with Grass installation

#57

duplicate gdal-grass and grass-gdal-plugins packages

#58

grass-pkg: make icon "GRASS GIS"

#61

Dependencies not automatically selected

#66

Grass Raster Fails to Load in QGIS

#68

g.proj.exe crashes on Windows Vista

#69

Error creating a new GRASS location inside QGIS

#71

Need set GRASS_WISH

#72

Add Cairo support for grass-7.0

#73

grass64 file has non-general file path

#77

add a menu entry for new GRASS gui

#81

qgis-grass plugin: "Cannot start module ... --interface-description"

#82

grass would not start

#83

grass pkg: terminal not available until you exit the gui

#85

grass needs wxWidgets to compile some GUI tools

#86

grass-pkg: typo in iexplorer path

#90

grass-pkg: wrong version in apps/grass/bin/ scripts

#95

python programs that uses grass.py do not work with --interface-description, --help, or --ui

#96

"import grass.script as grass" in Python GRASS AddOns doesn't work

#107

User Account Control problem with v.patch (grass) (was: grass (v.patch) need libintl-8.dll)

#118

Old version of msys in package causes problems on Windows Vista (x64)

#160

osgeo4w needs newer tcl version due to bug in file encodings

#168

svn for osgeo4w

#181

gpsbabel: missing libexpat XML parsing support (GPX)

#183

Upgrade GRASS to 6.4.0 release

#185

The express desktop install does not install gdal1.7

#194

please include a daily build for GRASS

#198

Missed grass-devel-vc package

#204

build GRASS with GEOS Support

#221

please updgrade GRASS to 6.4.1

#223

Upgrade QGIS/Grass and Grass plugin problem

#228

GRASS6.4.1 is not well work.

#248

add python-pil

#249

GRASS osgeo4w shortcut launchers do not work

#327

Can't start nviz from qgis grass toolbox

#344

Virus alert installing grass-6.4.3RC2\...\g.echo.exe

#369

PROJ_LIB wrongly set in env.bat

#426

g.proj: projection can't be determined (64bit)

#464

Windows 64-bit installer does not include GRASS 7

#519

please update qgis and qgis-grass-plugin7 for GRASS 7.0.5

#592

GRASS 7.6 implies a OSGEO4W_ROOT

#661

libgrass_gis.7.8 Not Found

#690

GRASS GIS 8 in OSGeo4W NG

#727

grass-7.8.6-8: GRASS 7 plugin not available in QGIS 3.16.16, QGIS 3.22.3, QGIS 3.23.0-Master (OSGeo4W Network Installer v2)

#755

GRASS processing algorithms not working: "ERROR: Unable to load GDAL library"

#790

qgis-grass-plugin 3.30.2-1 contains both qgis.g.browser7.exe and qgis.g.browser8.exe

Packager Notes

• Compile guide:
  • ​Build using MinGW (maturing nicely)
  • or ​Build using MSVC (in development)
  • (based on ​http://www.webalice.it/marco.pasetti/grass/BuildFromSource.html )
• Main WinGrass ​project current status page
• Steps:
  • compile GRASS in a way that it fits in the OSGeo4W directory hierarchy. Example: ​http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/branches/develbranch_6/mswindows/osgeo4w/package.sh
  • package in a tar.bz2 file
  • if needed, write/update "etc/postinstall/$paketname.bat" which is executed after extraction of the package during installation to define menu stuff and link on user desktop.
• Depends on the MSYS package for command line operations, because GRASS 6 uses unix shell scripts (GRASS 7 uses Python and so no UNIX compatibility is needed at run time [but build scripts still require GNU tools like awk, sed, etc.])
• WinGRASS is built with MSYS/MinGW. The libraries used to link to the VC++ built GDAL & friends is in the mingw-libs package (copies of the libraries: foo.lib renamed to libfoo.a).
• Release tree: ​http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/release/grass/ (the installer selects the package with highest version number)
• Maintainer is JuergenFischer (seeking new package maintainer)