[Koha-devel] Bug#389876: ITP: koha -- web-based library catalogue (ILS/OPAC)

[Vincent Danjean]

MJ Ray wrote:
> "Trent W. Buck" <trentbuck at gmail.com> wrote: [...]
>> Firstly, what is the status of the ITP?  Chris (part of the upstream
>> Koha team) told me in #koha that in Lenny the dependencies are all
>> resolved, so I guess that all that remains is to package Koha itself.
> 
> I've asked Chris Cormack about that on #koha just now. I thought
> we're still two short: Class::Adapter and SMS::Send.

It will be easy to put them in lenny-backport if needed.

>> How far along are you with that?
> 
> There's the collab-maint tree that you're probably aware of.
> I'm currently testing a clean install at a client site.
> 
> The thorny problems are the ones where the koha installation usually
> "interferes" with mysqld and wider system settings.
>
>> I looked briefly at upstream yesterday, and it seems to me that at a
>> minimum you will want a -common package (due to the large amount of
>> architecture-independent data files) and as there are apparently 50MB
>> of translation files, possible also seperate koha-language-<ISO 639>
>> packages.
> 
> Yes, I'd agree with that split as a minimum.  I'm open to suggestions
> about whether we want libkoha-perl and koha packages split or not.

collab-maint tree is a work-in-progress I did and that I never had
time to complete.
It already splits koha into several packages more or less automatically
(ie manual debian/rules target to (re-)create all language packages
in debian/control, ...)
For now, the koha is split in:
Package: koha-config:
 koha-config provides several files and scripts used by the other koha
 package to handle its configuration. This package will be automatically
 pulled when needed.
 [see below for more information]
Package: koha-common:
 This package include base-files of koha. Unless you have very specific needs,
 you would like to install koha-zebra or koha-nozebra that provides a default
 configuration.
Package: koha-nozebra
 Koha-nozebra is dedicated to small libraries who need who do not need
 the power of the IDZebra search engine.
Package: koha-zebra
 Koha with zebra
Package: koha-zebra-pazpar2
 Koha with zebra and pazpar2 (not ready at all since pazpar2 is not yet packaged)
Package: koha-zebra-server
 This package configures an instance of IDZebra to be used with Koha.
Package: koha-pazpar2-server
 This package configures an instance of PazPar2 to be used with Koha.
Package: koha
 This metapackage install the full-featured koha system (koha-zebra)
 and all Koha localisation packages.
Package: koha-l10n-XX
 This package contains the localization of Koha in XXXXXXX

Idea:
* koha-config and koha-common are helper packages (not really useful on their
  own)
* koha-nozebra, koha-zebra, and koha-zebra-pazpar2 are mostly empty packages
  that only depends on koha-common and koha-config and provide a good default
  configuration.
* koha-zebra-server and koha-pazpar2-server can be installed on other host
  than the koha web-application (so koha-zebra recommends koha-zebra-server
  but does not depend on it)


Managing mysqld settings is not really a problem: dbconfig-common is
here to help.
But I hit several problems:
- the perl parser must be selected system-wide. I already wrote on the
  Koha ML to ask them to manually select the parser directly in the
  Koha code. I do not know if all required modification have been done
- several configuration files (in particular /etc/koha/koha.conf) are
  used by different programs that will be in different packages.
  I need to know a precise description of all settings (in particular
  all settings in /etc/koha/koha.conf) and I need to know which
  programs use each of them
  => note to koha developers: it would be easier if different programs
  have different configuration files
- koha comes with a lot of scripts/utilities in /usr/share/koha/bin
  I need a description of their goal and of their use (how and when
  should we use them)

I will try to setup a wiki page with all these questions. When they
will be answered, it will be possible to finish the Debian Koha
packaging.
And any help is welcome of course.

  Regards,
    Vincent

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