Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Unable to install openacs-5.9.0b2

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Posted by Sophia Orthoi on

Well, I cannot get COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8 in Postgresql, 
and OpenACS seems to need it everywhere.

The reason seems to be that postgresql depends on the systems 
locale and the following:

http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libc/string/strcoll.c?rev=1.6&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup

I will continue experimenting with the C locale. 

Antonio, so far I understood what OpenACS is. What you write, is not the
reason of my understanding problems. The documentation has too much
step by step "learning by example",  too much sentences like "open 
your emacs editor", "install an operting system", etc. You speak about
writing a package? I think this is impossible without knowing the
architecture of OpenAcs, but you have the "Package Developer's Guide"
before the "Platform Developer's Guide".

What I miss, is a concise, accurate explanation.

S.O.


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Posted by Gustaf Neumann on
OpenACS might not need UTF-8, but your application might, once you want to entry arbitrary characters over the web interface. The encoding seems to be a well known openbsd problem. [1] recommends "initdb -D /var/postgresql/data/ --no-locale -E UTF8".

The sections of the manual are not intended for sequential reading, and yes, much of these comes from a mindset, that every openacs admin has to install everything "by hand". If one looks at [2], it is certainly true that chap 11 must be understood before chap 9. Most of the install infos are completely out of date. maybe we can make some cleanup for OpenACS 5.9.1. Any help to improve the documentation is certainly welcome. If one is using openacs over many years, one gets blind for such issues.

The following papers [3,4] might help to understand the conceptual background and the file-system structure better...

all the best
-g

[1] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/219443
[2] https://openacs.org/doc/acs-core-docs
[3] https://openacs.org/storage/download/OpenACS_Tutorial.pdf?file_id=2855307
[4] https://openacs.org/file/483757/OpenACS-full-paper.1.5.pdf.pdf

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Posted by Sophia Orthoi on
Thanks!

# initdb -D /var/postgresql/data/ --no-locale -E UTF8
# createuser acs
# createdb acs

Generated:

postgres=# \l
                             List of databases
   Name    |  Owner   | Encoding | Collate | Ctype |   Access privileges   
-----------+----------+----------+---------+-------+-----------------------
 acs       | postgres | UTF8     | C       | C     | 
 postgres  | postgres | UTF8     | C       | C     | 
 template0 | postgres | UTF8     | C       | C     | =c/postgres          +
           |          |          |         |       | postgres=CTc/postgres
 template1 | postgres | UTF8     | C       | C     | =c/postgres          +
           |          |          |         |       | postgres=CTc/postgres
(4 rows)

And with this it was possible to install after starting the server with: 

# nsd -u acs -t conf/myacs.tcl

(myacs.tcl was adapted from conf/openacs-config.tcl delivered with the
naviserver). Filling the form, etc.

I do not know what will be consequences of --no-locale. Perhaps nor 
ordering nor conversion of upper/lower, at least for multibyte
simbols.

It was also possible to install with encoding=ctype=latin1 and collate=C.

Improving the documentation is not a bad idea. Perhaps with the help of
a wiki?

Well, I am doing this in my free time, and just testing. But perhaps I will
stay here for a longer time. I dont know.
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Posted by Antonio Pisano on
Hello Sophia,

I am glad you managed to install OpenACS. Let me inform you that one of the most important applications running on this platform is a wiki.

You will find that the pages around in this website can be edited by registered users. The package enabling this feature for an OpenACS installation is called xowiki

https://openacs.org/xowiki/xowiki

As OpenBSD is a quite unusual platform for our userbase, a step by step guide of your installation process would be a great contribution!

All the best

Antonio