[Koha-devel] Debian Packaging

[Alex King]

Apologies for not actually getting past the "thinking about it" stage 
yet.  I'm having problems with my Round Tuit.

MJ Ray wrote:
> It may be better for debian/rules to ignore the installer, TBH,
> which would help with the CPANisation.  I'm not sure it's still worth 
> the effort.
>
>   
Yes I was thinking about ignoring the installer.pl in debian/rules, 
where we basically just have to copy stuff around.  installer.pl asks 
some questions first (to find out install locations), and creates 
koha.conf using those locations as well as copying the files.  We must 
do the coping at package build, and everthing in koha.conf is also set 
at package build time except the db details (name, host, user, 
password).  So creating koha.conf with a very simple script at install 
time is no problem either.

One question that is asked by the installer is the web template to use, 
default or NPL?  I see from a quick glance that both templates appear to 
be installed on disk in my install?  Is the template chosen by a 
datebase entry (or entries) as opposed to a different filesystem layout 
or symlinks etc?  It would be good if the template selection was 
completely in the db/config files and didn't imply a different file 
layout, it will make it simpler to package.
>> These functions need to be split in two - actually moving files into 
>> place to be done during packaging, and /etc and database initialisation 
>> during install.
>>     
>
> OK.  I think there's a third step of entering the librarian's defaults, 
> which could be done mostly after install from the web interface.  I 
> think we only ask a few librarian questions in the installer (MARC 
> starter, branch and printer) and they'd be better left until later.
>
>   
The MARC stuff worries me a bit because I don't understand it.  I see 
traffic regarding upgrading (to rel_3?) saying perhaps "you'll have an 
easier upgrade if MARC was set up so... and your data was consistently 
thus..."  Having some foreknowledge of what 3.0 will look like, can we 
encourage people in a certain direction so that a later upgrade to a 3.0 
package will be easier?  Can we ask debconf questions in such a way that 
they are easy to map to 3.0 so we can use the answers to suggest 
defaults in an upgrade?

I have a feeling that there is quite a lot of questions which relate to 
db setup and this will be the greater part of the work of packaging.

I think we should have a db setup script which can be run from postinst 
if the user wants, or can alternatively be run standalone.  Ie, a 
debconf question in postinst which asks "Do you want to set up the 
database now, or later?"  We don't necessarily want a dependancy on 
mysql-server, because some installations may have the db server on a 
different machine from where the koha package is installed.  Even if the 
there were a dependency on mysql-server, the server may not be started 
when we are running postinstall.

The separate db initialisation script also gives the user a way to 
"start again" with a fresh koha system if they make a mistake the first 
time around, without needing to remove the package and re-install.  They 
can just drop the existing db (or rename it, or just create a new one 
under a different name) and re-run the db initialisation script.  This 
can be documented in a readme with a note in a debconf message...

The db setup script needs to create /etc/koha.conf if it doesn't exist, 
or tell the user to manually modify it with the correct db paramaters if 
it does.

I think your idea of leaving what we can out of the install and doing it 
post install via the web interface is also a good one, once again we 
need to document this for people in README.Debian and/or other 
appropriate places.
>> [...] I'm available roughly 5pm - 12pm NZDT most days, or 
>> pretty much any time by arrangement.  Let me know when would suit you.
>>     
>
> I think 0730-0930 UTC (=~ 8.30-10.30pm NZDT?) would be best for me.  
> I'll try to hop on over the next few days at that time.
>
> Thanks,
>   
I'll try to hop on IRC tomorrow.

Alex