[Koha] Can anyone help a new Koha user?

[Stew Wilson]

Hi everyone,
I'm an English teacher at a high school in Changzhou, Jiangsu, China.  I'm
not a librarian, and have never used catalog software before.  I'm helping
some other English teachers here put together an English library for the
students, and I have been recommended Koha by a number of librarians.

I am not very technically proficient.  I have never used Linux, so have
opted for a Windows install.  I used Raja Biswas' Youtube
video<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou7WgoeSmOc>as a guide.  The
installers I used are:

 - ActivePerl 5.8.8.820-MSWin32-x86-274739
 - Apache 2.0.59-win32-x86-nossl
 - MySQL-4.0.26-win32
 - Koha2.2.8-W32-R0

I found that using these installers that Koha would actually install
(previous attempts with the latest versions of Perl, SQL etc failed).

So, it installed fine, but when I type in "intranet" or "opac" it gives me
the dreaded 500 server error:  "Premature end of script headers: mainpage.pl
".

I know from my reading of this listserve, and from other websites, that
this is the most common error.  I cannot find a consensus answer - or even
an answer that makes sense to me!

Rob Weir's handy troubleshooting
guide<http://www.koha.rwjr.com/Koha_on_Windows.html#d0e755>suggests
that I post the error log "opac-error_log" or "intranet-error_log"
into a forum for assistance.  A search of my computer reveals neither of
these files.  I have to assume that something isn't running.  I do have an
error log for Apache, but it seems to be ok.  When I type in localhost, I
get the message "it works!", so I'd think Apache should be fine.  I read
that error 500 is sometimes caused by a lack of permissions in ActivePerl,
but I have yet to find a way to fix this that makes even the remotest sense
to me.

I've had a look at the "WinMySQL" program that is located in the Koha
folder of the start menu.  When I right-click and select "start service",
the traffic light goes green for about a second and then goes red again.  I
hope that's useful!

Sorry to be a pain with the same old error that everyone strikes.  But if
anyone could help me in the right direction that would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks for your time,


Stew Wilson