Koha in Repository

[Jim Kronebusch]

> My impression is that there isn't a strong incentive for people to
> package PHP/MySQL server apps.  That is, it isn't a particularly easy
> package to create if you really want it to run out of the box with
> just "apt-get install koha" since your packaging scripts would have to
> configure the database and webserver correctly.  On the other hand,
> experienced sys admins don't necessarily want packages that do that
> configuration automatically.  They'd rather do it themselves.

I hear you there, Koha is horrible to install.  Even if you are experienced it can be
tough.  There is the Apache config, then the mysql side, but then a ton of perl modules
and versions don't match a lot.  If you have ever tried to install Koha or watched the
Koha lists there is a ton of problems.  But this is still the most widely used Library
software that is open source from what I can tell.  So if Ubuntu could find a way to
package this it would be a huge relief for anyone trying to manage a library, and be
another great way for Ubuntu to increase its market share.

So the packaging nightmare and build problems are what led me to think integration into
the Ubuntu Server platform might be the way to go.  At the end of my Ubuntu Server
install I can select "LAMP Server", that basically configures everything Koha needs to
run on.  After that it just needs to pull down a Koha package and all the perl modules
from apt.  I have talked via email to some of the Koha devels in the past and they seem
to be struggling with a decent way to package the software and make things easy for end
users as well.  I would think they would have some interest in working with Ubuntu to
get something like this going.  And luckily their platform of choice since the beginning
has been Debian, so it shouldn't be much of a transition.  This might allow them to
build Koha releases based off the default LAMP install in Ubuntu Server, and the perl
modules in the Ubuntu repository.  

I could be going overboard on assumptions here, but there has to be a better way.

I did work with someone before to build a Koha server in VMWare to make it easier to
distribute a working Koha server.  But that also requires some more basic users to build
a host server, then a VMWare server, then download and load the VM.  I think if what I
described above could be done, it would be a much better option.

Jim

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