Greetings, I am an Ubuntu user. Koha runs well under 10.04 (3.6.x) and 12.04 (3.6.x, 3.8.x), though there are some quirks for the dependencies. This is remedied by taking the appropriate “add a repo step” in wiki page here: http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_3.8_on_Debian_Squeeze#To_use It is important to make sure you have the correct repo added and the key installed. I typically have done tarball installs. Though, I am slowly coming around to the idea of koha-common in my Ubuntu environments. Admittedly, I needed something working, and didn’t have time to look at the koha-common install process. I have written a handy-dandy script (check_deps.sh) which uses apt-file to: 1) determine which is missing in {OS}.{version}.packages files – though currently only debian and ubuntu have those kinds of files in the misc_install directory 2) determine what needs to be installed (can be apt-get’d) 3) determine what needs to be CPAN’d, because it’s not listed via apt-file. I can’t remember which bug report I attached it to. I also attempted an RPM-based version of it for yum (yuminstall.sh). However, the number of dependencies missing under CentOS 6.3 (5.8 won’t work by default, unless you upgrade perl) was just too high and my netbook too underpowered. I gave up on attempting Fedora because of my underpowered netbook. However, the script does list what is missing, and if there was man power to RPM package them (like that is going to happen), then it would be possible to support RPM-based OS’s too. However, given the man-power required. I don’t think it is recommended. In the past some people have exerted much effort trying to get it to run under Windows. Frankly, I use virtualbox with a wired connection as a bridged adapter, no need to get it to run natively. And again, I use Ubuntu on my VMs. The problem is that RPM-based OS’ tend to be behind in releasing libraries. It is even worse for Windows versions (e.g. ActiveState? Perl). So, to summarize my take on preferences: 1) Debian 6+ first and foremost – use packages (koha-common – see wiki page above) if you aren’t developing, use git if you are. (http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Version_Control_Using_Git) tarballs are a waste of your time (I had problems getting the tarball to build under debian – yes, I tried for 3.6.3 – but this was before I was aware of the koha-community repository.) 2) Ubuntu 10.04 and 12.04 LTS – try to use packages, but at least set up the koha-community repository. Tarballs work, but are not recommended. 3) Some other DEB-based OS, though if given the choice, please choose Debian. Did I say how wonderful the packages were if you aren’t developing? And use git if you are? 4) If you have no other choice and must use something other than a DEB-based OS, tarball is your only option, and we make no promises that it will work or that we’ll be able to help you. So, what OS versions does Koha run on? Whatever you can get it to work on, but Debian 6+ and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS are preferred. When Ubuntu 14.04 LTS comes out, it is my understanding that 10.04 support will be dropped.
One implication of this would be that patches introducing dependencies not easily available on a supported system would be rejected or deferred until such time as they were easily available. So, for example, if a patch introduced a dependency that's packaged for Debian Wheezy, but not for Squeeze, it would not be added to Koha until Wheezy was released.
If it is merely a perl dependency, couldn’t it be packaged up on the koha-community repository? Wouldn’t a newer version in main replace the older koha-community version? I ask out of technical ignorance. If it behaves that way, then I don’t see why it would have to hold back a patch until an OS release. Hope this rambling is/was mildly useful. GPML, Mark Tompsett