[Koha] installer database error

[MJ Ray]

Rick Welykochy <rick at praxis.com.au> wrote:
> Could I provide a bit of installer feedback?

You can, but it's not going to be used in a direct way.  I can't
remember how much of this has been published yet, but where's why:

1. the current installer will die.

It's a bit hack-after-hack-after-hack, doesn't handle several
complications terribly well, isn't very portable and mixes up sysadmin
and librarian options.  Unless you have both people available during
installation (or a sysadmin who knows what to ask the librarian), it
can require several attempts to get a fully-working install.

I hope it will die during 2.2.x but definitely by 3.0.


2. there will be a sysadmin installer and a librarian installer.

The sysadmin installer will handle things like getting the right perl
modules, installing koha's files and configuring apache.

HDL is writing a great web-based installer for the librarian parts
which does the superlibrarian and database setup and does some other
things.  I think that works for some people, but had hit a design
problem which needed a bit more thinking last I heard.


3. the sysadmin installer will use standard portable tools.

It's probably going to be MakeMaker (as used when you install most
stuff from CPAN) if I can figure out how to install koha's cgi-bin
scripts and html templates with it in a portable way. However, the
method to do that is not obvious to me, which is why I'd love to find
another complex perl web application to see how they do it.  (Good
artists copy - great artists steal.)

As far as possible, it will be non-interactive, which handles the ^C
point.  Using MakeMaker should give us an uninstall.  I hope there
will be an uninstall for the librarian step too.


Now, to the other relevant comment:

> The set of Perl modules that works with Koha version X (e.g. 2.2.8)
> should be cast in concrete. e.g. if XML::Parser version 3.2 works with
> Koha 2.2.8, then XML::Parser/3.2 should be downloaded and form part of
> the the Koha set of sources. It is asking for trouble (MUCH trouble!)
> to allow CPAN to download the latest set of everything and "hope"
> it will all fit together. I find it never does. [...]

This will happen.  It is necessary for the sysadmin installer too.  It
is actually one of the most difficult things for me: when do I require
an obsolete version and when do I upgrade the Koha code to use the
current one?

Bundling XML::Parser/3.2 with the main release of Koha would cause
other problems for packaged distributions, but maybe there should be a
Koha-comprehensive download as well as the usual Koha release.  What
do others think about this?

With the MakeMaker installer, I think I may be able to make CPAN
install a particular version rather than the latest version, but I
could be wrong about that.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
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