How to Install TileServer GL on Clear Linux Latest

Introduction

TileServer GL is an open-source map serving software that allows the creation of custom maps with vector and raster tiles. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps required to install TileServer GL on Clear Linux Latest.

Prerequisites

• Clear Linux Latest installed.
• Administrator privileges.

Step 1 - Install Node.js

Before installing TileServer GL, we need to ensure that Node.js is installed on our system. Clear Linux OS uses the swupd command to manage packages, so we can install Node.js with the following command:

sudo swupd bundle-add nodejs-basic

This command installs Node.js and its basic dependencies.

Step 2 - Install TileServer GL

To install TileServer GL, we can use the npm package manager, which is built into Node.js. Run the following command:

sudo npm install -g tileserver-gl

This command installs TileServer GL globally on our system. It may take a while to complete depending on our internet speed as it downloads and installs all the required dependencies.

Step 3 - Download Map Data

To serve maps using TileServer GL, we need map data in the form of vector tiles. We can download the map data in the pbf format from a variety of sources such as OpenStreetMap, Mapbox, or any other service. For this tutorial, we will download OpenStreetMap's data using the following command:

wget https://download.geofabrik.de/europe/germany-latest.osm.pbf

This command downloads the map data for Germany in the osm.pbf format. We can place the downloaded file anywhere on our system, but for this tutorial, we'll assume that it's saved in the home directory.

Step 4 - Create a Configuration File

With the map data downloaded, we need to create a configuration file that specifies the settings for TileServer GL. We can create a new file with the following command:

nano tileserver-gl.json

This command opens the nano text editor and creates a new file called tileserver-gl.json.

We can add the following configuration settings to the file:

{
    "options": {
        "paths": {
            "root": "./tiles"
        }
    },
    "data": {
        "osm": {
            "mbtiles": {
                "url": "mbtiles://germany-latest.osm.pbf"
            }
        }
    },
    "styles": {
        "default": {
            "style": "styles/osm-bright/style.json"
        }
    }
}

This configuration file specifies the location of the map data, the location of the tilesets, and the style to be used to render the maps.

Step 5 - Convert Map Data

Before we can serve maps using TileServer GL, we need to convert the map data into vector tiles. We can do this using the following command:

tileserver-gl-dump germany-latest.osm.pbf

This command converts the osm.pbf file into vector tiles and places them in the ./tiles/osm directory, as specified in the tileserver-gl.json configuration file.

Step 6 - Start TileServer GL

With everything set up, we can start TileServer GL using the following command:

tileserver-gl --config tileserver-gl.json

This command starts TileServer GL and serves our maps. We can access them in a web browser by navigating to http://localhost:8080.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to install TileServer GL on Clear Linux Latest and use it to serve custom maps from OpenStreetMap data. TileServer GL provides a powerful set of tools for creating maps, and it's a great option for developers looking to build custom map-based applications.

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