How to install Spearfish data

This part still worked correctly the last time I tried it. 4/22/2005

How I installed Spearfish data. I have yet to make it do anything, but I am making a little grudging progress!

1. After you have completed the steps described in
   • How to install Cygwin and GRASS GIS, or in
   • How to install Cygwin and GRASS GIS using WinGRASS cd
   and have used Grass60.bat (Grass61.bat, if you installed GRASS 6.1) to bring up the initial GRASS graphic screen, don't attempt to enter GRASS the first time, just exit completely out of it and the Cygwin BASH shell.

   The GRASS 6.0 Ref. Manual says the following:

   GRASS data are stored in a directory referred to as DATABASE (also called ``GISDBASE''). This directory has to be created with mkdir or a file manager, before starting to work with GRASS. Within this DATABASE, the projects are organized by project areas stored in subdirectories called LOCATIONs.

   The installation process created c:\cygwin\john[in my case].

   I used Windows Explorer to add the subdirectory c:\cygwin\john\database.

2. You can set up the Spearfish mapset directly by extracting it to right place.
   1. In Windows Explorer, go wherever you downloaded (see links page)
      spearfish_grass57data.tar.gz

   2. I double-clicked on
      spearfish_grass57data.tar.gz
      

   3. My WinZip asked me if I wanted to create a temp file and unzip it. I clicked Yes

   4. WinZip then showed a screen showing that it contained 687 files and more than 34mb.

   5. I clicked Control-A (select all) and Extract

   6. For destination, I selected
      c:\cygwin\home\john\database
      and clicked Extract again. When it finished, I X'd out of WinZip.

   7. Using Windows Explorer my GRASS directory tree looked like this:
      

   8. I launched GRASS and the startup screen looked like this:
      
      • In the "Data Selection" screen, "home/[username]" should appear in the "Database" line. Click on "Browse" button
      • In "New Database Directory" pop-up, "home/[username]/" should appear. Click on it.
      • "home/[username]/database" should then appear below it. When it does click on it. Click "OK".
      • In the "Data Selection" screen, "home/[username]/database" should appear in the "Database"
      • At "Location", "spearfish57" should then appear. Click on it.
      • At "(Accessible) Mapsets", "Permanent" and "user1" should appear. Click on "user1".
      • Click on "Enter GRASS" and you should be up and running.
      If you get an error message, just try it again. Sometimes, this will not work the first time, but will work if you try it again (and thereafter).
   References
   • GRASS 5.0 Tutorial (pdf), p.23
   • GRASS 5.0 Tutorial (htm). Differs a bit from above.
   • Set-up your GRASS database from the GRASS 5.0 Tutorial (html).
   • How to start with GRASS (6.0) From GRASS 6.0 Reference Manual, above. General description of path hierarchy.
   • Download of 5.7 Spearfish sample data.
     
   • Download of topo data ref Spearfish. Readme gives parameters required for creating mapset.

Comments or suggestions?