-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Tim Bell wrote:
... And regarding open source, there are many reasons why installation is often harder than for a similar commercial application. But the blame for that should usually be shared between the open-source application and the open-source operating system it runs on. My own experience is that Debian GNU/Linux makes it much easier to install software than RPM-based distributions (such as Red Hat). But there's no free lunch: packaging software for Debian is harder because of the more stringent quality controls which are required.
I never have understood, and still don't understand, why people think typing 'rpm -Uvh packagename' is hard. Red Hat doesn't have the advantage/disadvantage of being a single unified project. Every man and his dog makes RPM packages, many of them not free, so there is no authoritative source from which to resolve dependencies. Thus, the responsibility to find the correct packages is left with the user. However, that still doesn't make it hard to install software.
... What does all this mean for Koha? Well, I'm not a Koha developer (not even a user yet, although I hope to persuade our library one day), but here are the options as I see them to make installation easier:
1. Provide Koha packaged for each OS you want to support (e.g. Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, etc., or Windows even). In some cases this might require also supplying the required supporting packages (which is what started this whole discussion thread, I believe).
What other way is there? Users don't compile, users install. The FreeBSD/Gentoo philosophy of making every end user a build engineer is ludicrous, in my opinion. I started programming in C over 15 years ago, but i am not the slightest bit interested in recompiling ls and vi and other core utilities when i install an OS (not to mention wasting breath and time sitting there watching it recompile). For widespread use, an installable package native to the given OS is essential.
The packaging of Koha for different distributions could be contributed by people other than core development people if necessary.
I would say this is essential. If you're Debian people and it works for you, there's no incentive to make RPM packages. If you're like me and can't stand seeing any software on the box not being controlled by the native software management system, the incentive is there.
2. Provide Koha packaged for a single Linux distribution, and possibly incorporated on a custom Linux install CD image.
In my experience, this makes it a pain to install for people who want to use the software but are competent with a different OS, and more significantly, requires people to have a dedicated server if they don't already have a like system. This was recently illustrated for me by the content filtering system CensorNet. It is a Debian-based standalone distribution that combines Dan's Guardian with a web frontend and an image filter that (theoretically) blocks certain types of images based on content. However, since i'm more familiar with Red Hat, installing LAN cards was a pain, as was their access control (based upon MAC addresses rather than IP addresses - they assume people will run DHCP with dynamic addressing). So the software was not a good fit for my environment and i decided not to use it, because sticking with the distribution i know means saved time and headaches.
3. Improve the install scripts to check for required Perl modules and install them from CPAN if necessary.
Those of us in the RPM mould find CPAN installation intolerable (not to mention a pain), because you can't find out all the packages that are installed from one interface. That's why i made the RPMs to provide perl dependencies.
... But I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that users need to be realistic in their expectations of the installation process. To quote (possibly misquote) Einstein, things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
Having installed two different versions of Koha from scratch now, on two different versions of Red Hat, my opinion is that the installation process could be made quite a bit simpler (at least on Red Hat ;-) by providing preconfigured defaults for most of the installation parameters (not the library parameters that Paul P. mentioned earlier, just the installation-related stuff like paths, ports, hostnames, etc.). If i get a chance i might try to whip up an RPM that does this in the next few weeks/months. I think it might require some adjustments to the installer, but i'm sure the Koha team will be willing to accept patches. :-) Paul http://paulgear.webhop.net P.S. Are my packages going to be put on sourceforge? Don't i deserve my millisecond of glory? :-) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE+9uAZ0yv0OWRYqWwRApE1AKDO8XbOypRzIewMVN6y0BMv/FmpgQCfZmf9 sBcbIMNxWtsXV1JD7lw2dEo= =mAyp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----