[Koha] Running koha from removable media

James Leech James.Leech at slq.qld.gov.au
Wed Jan 14 21:27:41 NZDT 2009


Krishnan,

 

This is a great start. The intention for this concept is to provide
remote knowledge centre's with a simple way to use their computer to
monitor their books, CD's and DVD's , in places without tech support or
reliable computers.

These remote communities don't get support or funding to purchase a
library management system and so I am wondering if it would be very
difficult to make a USB stick library management system.  A copy could
be made - one for the administrator as the master and one for the public
to use for browsing.  Any changes can be made on the 'admin stick',
duplicating this at any time  would update the public database.

 

 It would be best if it could be run from within a Windows environment
without having to boot from the stick. This way, any computer that is
working (desktop PC or a laptop) could be used to host the USB stick and
software. Most of these remote libraries would have less than 1000 items
total. Some have Internet - some don't. I have started a blog with a map
showing where they all are : http://ikcnetwork.blogspot.com/

 

I might try and create mu own kitchen sink!

 

Cheerio,

 

James

 

 

James Leech  Project officer - Keeping Culture Strong 

State Library of Queensland - Cairns  Reef Terminal Building  Level 1, 1
Spence Street, Cairns  Qld  4870  P.O. Box 2352, Cairns, 4870

mob:  0407 674 378   wk:(07) 4031 3232    hm: (07) 4095 2724    fax:
(07) 4031 1234 

________________________________

From: Krishnan M [mailto:kmlist at yahoo.in] 
Sent: Wednesday, 14 January 2009 5:01 PM
To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz; James Leech
Subject: Re: [Koha] Running koha from removable media

 

While i haven't tried it yet, it should certainly be possible.

The Koha installer merely adds "web resources" (perl, javascript,
images, and such), and a couple of configuration files for itself and
Apache

Koha depends on Apache, MySQL, and Perl language facilities plus Perl
modules. The configuration file and the database contain everything
unique that Koha "knows" about a particular installation. 

Indeed, very often i simply do a 'mysqldump' of Koha's database to my
own USB stick when i want to work on my library catalog on my laptop
elsewhere, instead of on the server itself. 

Also, i have the same database user setup, so that config files match.
Also, a user called 'koha' on the operating system itself, that owns all
of Koha's files. Of course, there are security risks with just setting
up users on multiple machines this way.

i have no experience with zebra, and can't comment on its configuration.

A 'lite' version on a stick might assume that these are available on the
server you plug it into, BUT have the database (and config) files on the
stick itself so you can move between servers.

A 'full' version might bundle everything, but the OS. A 'kitchen-sink'
version is probably one that you can boot into with a full OS.

Now, for some data: A 'du -sh /usr/share/koha' yields 316Mbytes
Similar du -sh readings are as follows:
316M    /usr/share/koha
1.4M    /var/lib/mysql/koha3/
476M    /usr/local/share/perl/
6.6M    /usr/local/lib/perl/

The first is all the files for Koha's "pages". The second is a
relatively freshly-installed Koha database (not much data), and the last
two are the Perl modules Koha needs (and some more). This suggests a
size under 1 Gig for the whole gig (pun intended)

a USB stick throws up interesting possibilities for distribution, since
i have now been supplying DVDs for Koha installs in places where no
Internet is available. More about that in later mail.

regards,
krishnan

--- On Wed, 14/1/09, James Leech <James.Leech at slq.qld.gov.au> wrote:

From: James Leech <James.Leech at slq.qld.gov.au>
Subject: [Koha] Running koha from removable media
To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
Date: Wednesday, 14 January, 2009, 2:39 AM

Hello

 

Has anyone ever heard of anyone attempting to run a simple library
management system off a USB Stick? 

 

With USB sticks getting larger, and various solutions offering to boot
Linux from your portable USB stick, would it be possible to run a
version of koha that could manage a small library collection?  I'm not
very cluey about client / database solutions, but I noticed one post
mentioning Koha running on a standalone PC with the client accessing the
localhost.

 

Also, how large would a koha installation be?

 

Cheerio,

 

James 

 

James Leech  Project officer - Keeping Culture Strong 

State Library of Queensland - Cairns  Reef Terminal Building  Level 1, 1
Spence Street, Cairns  Qld  4870  P.O. Box 2352, Cairns, 4870

mob:  0407 674 378   wk:(07) 4031 3232    hm: (07) 4095 2724    fax:
(07) 4031 1234 

 


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