On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 02:50:36PM -0500, Tim Donohue wrote: > On 5/11/2011 1:49 PM, Peter Dietz wrote: > > But, for developing DSpace, and people that build from source (since > > they've got their own modifications to make), mvn + ant are excellent > > tools to do that. For everyone who doesn't quite get maven, then we > > should have easy to follow docs that say in plain english/i18n edit: > > /opt/dspace/pom.xml and at line 503, edit the <modules> directive and > > add an additional entry for <module>../rest</module>. And have the rest > > project checked out to /opt/rest, then proceed as usual (mvn ... ant ... > > tomcat). > > I can definitely see you point about also improving documentation. But > as DSpace is now nearly 9 years old and we still haven't found "easy > enough" documentation, I'm not sure I'm in full agreement that we'll > ever be able to provide clear enough documentation for everyone.
Likewise.
> In addition, the main reason for this idea of an "easy installer" was to
> try and free up more of our Committer/developer time. If you notice, we
> still receive a ton of dspace-tech questions regarding installation
> problems (e.g. "Maven error", "Ant error", "problem compiling", "Why am
> I getting this weird error when I follow the Install instructions?").
>
> The goal is to try and see if there's a way to build a more "automated"
> installation such that we don't receive quite so many install questions
> from novice users or folks who just want to try out DSpace on their
> local server. Obviously we should also be sure to provide clear install
> docs. But we really shouldn't require everyone to compile DSpace for
> themselves (unless they really want or need to).
I think I hear a disagreement about who the installation docs are for.
Are they for new users, and people who need more control are on their
own? Or are they for people looking to fit DSpace more neatly into
their operation, while new users are protected by a wizard from having
to know so much?
Maybe we need two: Installation Guide (just gets you a working
DSpace) and Installation Reference (with all the knobs exposed and
thoroughly discussed).
Or we need to discuss the choices (and some useful defaults) up
front:
You will need to know the following before you start:
o What DBMS you have, or intend to install. PostgreSQL and Oracle
are supported.
DBMS: ____________________
o What you want to name the database that DSpace will use. If you
don't care, use 'dspace'.
database: ____________________
o What DBMS user/role will own the DSpace database. If you don't
care, use 'dspace'. You'll also need the password for this.
DBMS user: ____________________
DBMS password: ____________________
o What Servlet container you have, or intend to install. Apache
Tomcat and [X] and [Y] are supported.
container: ____________________
o What user account will run the servlet container. DSpace files
must be owned by this user. If you use your OS' package manager
then it will choose the account and you need to find out what it
chose. If you are installing the container by hand, use anything
you want, such as 'dspace'.
OS user: ____________________
o Where you want to install the working instance of DSpace. [X] and
[Y] are typical.
DSpace Home: ____________________
Have you gathered those data? Let's begin.
This is just a sketch, not a finished work. I'm sure I left something
out. It looks like a lot. But you have a lot of freedom and that
requires some decisions. Notice that a known usable answer is given
for every one of them. Fill in the blanks and you have your cheat
sheet ready when you get to steps that want local information.
(But if you go that far, the rest is mechanical, so you've specified
an installer program and just not yet written it.)
Actually I would argue with some of the defaults above. If you
someday want to run other stuff in your servlet container, having
JRandomProduct owned by 'dspace' will be confusing. If you want to
run multiple instances of DSpace in the same container (we do) then at
least N-1 of the databases must be named something else, and the
remaining one will be ambiguous. Ditto DBMS role names.
> How much of the software you use daily asks you to first compile it
> before you install it?
Heh, I use Gentoo Linux, so: 99% and I complain about the other 1%
being so secretive. :-)
--
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer mw...@iupui.edu
Asking whether markets are efficient is like asking whether people are smart.
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