Well, it's been a while, but I've been making slow progress. I decided to go with QGis and GRASS because I can't find what I want in other packages. That's not to say that they're not there, but the features I'm looking for are not obvious to me, except in QGis and GRASS where I'm pretty sure I'll find what I need. Something else I've discovered in the course of a few work-related meetings in the past week; ESRI ArcGIS is giving me a vocabulary in GIS that others seem to have trouble with. I'm also finding that the tools I'm finding easily in ArcGIS are not so easy to find in any other solutions because the ESRI names are unique. Maybe just working with the other software will expand my vocabulary. Anyway, I'm finding some awkward bits in compiling everything needed for QGis. The required software includes GRASS if you want to use it, and GDAL. Problem I'm struggling with is that if you want the two to be aware of each other, they nee