[OSM-talk] Running my own slippy map

[Nick Whitelegg]

>I like the simplicity of your instructions =) But Freemap isn't really 
the
>output I'd want for this, as you note. Why is your process so simple, 
when
>the wiki seems to suggest that OpenLayers needs mapserver with data
>downloaded from NASA and all sorts of other work to go from an .osm file 
to a
>slippy map?

Presumably because all that needs MapServer, and MapServer requires the 
data to be in a certain format, e.g. shapefiles. There is no direct OSM to 
shapefile converter yet, so it has to go via GML which is a very 
memory-intensive process. Freemap does not need MapServer, it is just a 
standalone WMS server (OK, it doesn't 100% follow the spec but it takes a 
bounding box, width and height which is the most important thing...). 
OpenLayers will talk to any WMS server.

Nick