Hello fellow Cherokee users,
In October I asked the question "Is Cherokee Project still active?" and I want to follow up that topic. Honestly I did not understand Stefan Koninks post - gramatically. No offense, just not sure if my english is too bad, or vice versa ;) But my impression is that the people who are actively involved into Cherokee are against package distributions. That might be okay from a developers point of view. But you will prevent Cherokee from being well know as most people who would be interested into Cherokee are not that much into updating Gits and compiling and stuff. I mean, come on. Cherokee has an easy to use web interface that the big monster and commonly known web server Apache does not have. (I hate Apache for it's overly complicated configuration). I still think an "aptitudeinstall cherokee" must deliver up-to-date software! (And no, I cannot do it myself, that argument is invalid. All I can do for Cherokee is to spread the word, which I am doing since I found it several years ago!) I am running a Cherokee server on Debian with 10 websites on it for two or three years now and its fast, easy and I love it! The package in testing hasn't been updated for 1-2 years now and there was a lot of broken stuff I needed to fix. So I build Cherokee from git source. I NEVER wanted to do this, but feeled the need of it. The last time I compiled something was 2006 when I first got in contact with Debian. So I searched for the READMEs and found them on git. They are two years old. I followed them anyway. Sometimes old stuff is old, because it's still valid. Today I wanted to update Cherokee, just to know how to do it. Well, I had a very interesting discussion in #debian on freenode (anonymized): *************************************** [17:54] == Stadpirat11 has joined #debian [17:55] -ChanServ- [#debian] Welcome to #Debian. This is a discussion channel; if you have a question about Debian GNU/Linux, ask and we will try our best to answer it. Newcomers should read the channel's guidelines by typing "/msg dpkg guidelines". Please do not paste in the channel; use #flood instead. Thank you. [17:56] <Stadpirat11> Hi. I cloned a git repo, compiled the software and installed it using make install. now i updated my local git clone and want to update my software installation. but how? same steps like installation, or different? [17:57] <slowmo> Stadpirat11, ohhh its a nightmare if you didnt use a packet manager [17:58] <rockmelon> packet manager ._. [17:58] <rockmelon> why [17:58] <slowmo> Stadpirat11, always use the software checkinstall when deploying code which is not in the repo [17:58] <themill> (or better yet, build a real debian package) [17:58] <slowmo> rockmelon, because files are being scattered all over the place [17:59] <slowmo> themill, why is that better?? That takes forever to figure out how to do [17:59] <Stadpirat11> I followed https://github.com/cherokee/webserver/blob/master/doc/basics_installation_git.txt because I have no Idea what I am doing and there is no current package. :) [17:59] <slowmo> Stadpirat11, then you are f***** :) [17:59] <Stadpirat11> checkinstall? I will check that out [17:59] <Stadpirat11> lol [17:59] <slowmo> Stadpirat11, yeah, that will create a debian package for you so you can easily uninstall everything again at any point [18:00] <iknowstuff> slowmo: That is *exactly* the right tool to use and it might simply be that your particular hardware is not very well supported by the kernel in squeeze. You could try the kmuto installer (/msg dpkg kmuto) which comes with a newer kernel [18:00] <Stadpirat11> ahh [18:00] <themill> slowmo: checkinstall doesn't work that well for things that aren't autotools based. [18:00] <iknowstuff> !tell Stadpirat11 -about stow usage [18:00] <slowmo> themill, thats true also....but its definitly worth the shot...and its not easy to build debian packages manually [18:00] <rockmelon> I assume you meant package manager. [18:01] <iknowstuff> Stadpirat11: I would recommend to use stow to manage installations to /usr/local -- It makes it much easier to keep things separate. It sounds, however, as if you didn't even install to /usr/local -- Could you tell us exactly what you've done and which software you have installed? [18:01] <themill> slowmo: if checkinstall can do it, then dh_make can do it. [18:01] <iknowstuff> slowmo: I just use stow and install things into /usr/local/stow/foo-bar-0.1.2/ [18:02] <Stadpirat11> iknowstuff: I followed https://github.com/cherokee/webserver/blob/master/doc/basics_installation_git.txt - then I followed https://github.com/cherokee/webserver/blob/master/doc/basics_installation_unix.txt [18:03] <iknowstuff> Stadpirat11: Did you adjust "--prefix=/usr" to "--prefix=/usr/local" to ensure that you install to /usr/local instead of /usr ? [18:03] <Stadpirat11> In short. there is a "autogen.sh" script and then I did "./configure --localstatedir=/var --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --with-wwwroot=/var/www" and then "make" and finally "make install" [18:03] <Stadpirat11> well - no ^^ [18:04] <iknowstuff> Stadpirat11: Also: Are you sure that a more commonly used webserver such as Apache and or NGINX or any of the ones packaged in Debian aren't suitable for your task? [18:06] <Stadpirat11> I find apache a pain in the ass compared to cherokee. and I don't even want to go into nginx. The team used to maintain debian packages, but they didnt update them for quite awhile. the packaged version is broken, so I tried to follow the teams advise to get it from git :) [18:06] <iknowstuff> Stadpirat11: Ok, please uninstall cherokee completely and make sure that you use "--prefix=/usr/local" or (even better) "--prefix=/usr/local/stow/cherokee" (read "/msg dpkg stow usage" to understand this) [18:06] <Stadpirat11> iknowstuff, i read your message, thanks [18:07] <iknowstuff> Stadpirat11: You should *never* install anything by hand into /usr/ -- We have /usr/local for this and you can seriously damage your system but not following this convention. I would also tell the cherokee guys to update their installation instructions as having that online is just irresponsible (I consider that a serious problem) [18:08] <themill> you might want to use debsums to check that it hasn't overwritten files that dpkg is looking after. If it has overwritten non-managed files or left crap around on unistall, then you'll never know... [18:08] <Stadpirat11> okay [18:08] <Stadpirat11> phew [18:09] <Stadpirat11> thank god i can save this discussion for later reread :D [18:09] <Stadpirat11> thanks for your advises! [18:09] <iknowstuff> Stadpirat11: In short: Make sure to remove the installation again (and follow ^^^^) -- Then install stow and run "mkdir -p /usr/local/stow/" -- You can then run "./autogen --prefix=/usr/local/stow/cherokee [rest of the options]) -- After installation you can "enable" it by running "cd /usr/local/stow ; stow cherokee" (which will set the correct symlinks) [18:11] <Stadpirat11> wow, okay, thanks for all your help [18:11] <Stadpirat11> I will do as you say ;) [18:12] <Stadpirat11> especially "I would also tell the cherokee guys to update their installation instructions as having that online is just irresponsible" [18:12] <iknowstuff> Stadpirat11: If, at any point in the future, you want to remove cherokee you can simply run "stow -D cherokee" and remove /usr/local/stow/cherokee ... (for example) -- That way your manual installation will *never* interfere with the package manager or other system software *and* the manual installations are separated from each other in subdirectories in /usr/local/stow) *************************************** That discussion should prove you that: 1. people like me should not use git! 2. you should at least maintain a proper installation documentation. As a last word I want to remind anyone reading this: I am angry about Cherokee Project. Not for the sake of being angry, but because I love Cherokee but I just don't see it as an awesome webserver anymore. It becomes something for insiders, developers and nerds. :(((( - Stadtpirat11 _______________________________________________ Cherokee mailing list [email protected] http://lists.octality.com/listinfo/cherokee
