[Geocoding] Nominatim 2.4.0 release announcement

[Sarah Hoffmann]

Hi all,

we are happy to announce the release of the new Nominatim version 2.4.0.

A lot of changes have happened under the hood with this release. Most
importantly we've switched to the C++ version of the osm2pgsql importer
which includes a complete rewrite of the filter for OSM data. A lot of
irrelevant data is now dropped a lot earlier while support for new
types has been added, where OSM mapping has evolved. For example,
bridge and tunnel names are now searchable as well as man-made structures
like towers. Furthermore some minor internal restructuring allowed
us to drop the huge way-node-index. Together these two changes result
in a decrease of the database size of at least 20%.

For new installations this release introduces configurable tablespace
so that the database now be easily be divided when small SSDs are
available. Have a look at the CONST_Tablespace_* parameters in
settings/settings.php. Also configurable is now the name of the
webserver user which should make installations on CentOS go smoother.

The new release is available as always at

http://www.nominatim.org/release/Nominatim-2.4.0.tar.bz2

Installation instructions are at the usual place at

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim/Installation

Even though it is possible to upgrade from older versions, a reimport
is strongly recommended to fully profit from the new importer. If
you cannot reimport, then detailed instructions for updating can be
found in the release notes:

https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/wiki/Release-Notes-2.4.0

Kind regards

Sarah