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

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23: Re: Unable to install openacs-5.9.0b2 (response to 22)
Posted by Gustaf Neumann on 10/19/15 01:43 PM
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 Most of the install infos are completely out of date.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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24: Re: Unable to install openacs-5.9.0b2 (response to 23)
Posted by Sophia Orthoi on 10/26/15 06:58 PM 
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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25: Re: Unable to install openacs-5.9.0b2 (response to 24)
Posted by Antonio Pisano on 10/26/15 07:33 PM
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