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-rw-r--r--docs/getting_started.md13
-rw-r--r--docs/installing/manual_install.md104
2 files changed, 91 insertions, 26 deletions
diff --git a/docs/getting_started.md b/docs/getting_started.md
index 5c5a7437d..615d7e818 100644
--- a/docs/getting_started.md
+++ b/docs/getting_started.md
@@ -108,12 +108,13 @@ You'll need to find a tech person who knows about hosting websites using Apache
and Linux. They don't need to know Ruby on Rails, but it would be a huge
advantage if they do.
-You'll also need to source a server. You should ask your tech person to help
-with this. The minimum spec for running a low traffic website is 512MB RAM and
-a 20GB disk. 2GB RAM would be ideal. We recommend Debian Squeeze 64-bit as the
-operating system, though any sort of Linux should do. Rackspace offer suitable
-cloud servers, which start out at around $25 / month. Then your tech person
-should follow the [installation documentation]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/installing/).
+You'll also need to source a server. You should ask your tech person to
+help with this. The minimum spec for running a low traffic website is
+512MB RAM and a 20GB disk. 2GB RAM would be ideal. We recommend the
+latest Debian Wheezy (7) or Squeeze (6) 64-bit or Ubuntu precise (12.04)
+as the operating system. Rackspace offer suitable cloud servers, which
+start out at around $25 / month. Then your tech person should follow the
+[installation documentation]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/installing/).
Alternatively, you could use Amazon Web Services. This has the
added advantage that you can use our preconfigured [Alaveteli EC2
diff --git a/docs/installing/manual_install.md b/docs/installing/manual_install.md
index 8d6403b73..653c6e7f4 100644
--- a/docs/installing/manual_install.md
+++ b/docs/installing/manual_install.md
@@ -19,15 +19,15 @@ Note that there are [other ways to install Alaveteli]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/ins
## Target operating system
-These instructions assume Debian Squeeze (64-bit) or Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
-(precise). Debian Squeeze is the best supported deployment platform. We also
+These instructions assume Debian Wheezy or Squeeze (64-bit) or Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
+(precise). Debian is the best supported deployment platform. We also
have instructions for [installing on MacOS]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/installing/macos/).
Commands are intended to be run via the terminal or over ssh.
## Set the locale
-**Debian Squeeze**
+**Debian Wheezy or Squeeze**
Follow the [Debian guide](https://wiki.debian.org/Locale#Standard) for configuring the locale of the operating system.
@@ -60,59 +60,118 @@ submodules, run:
git submodule update --init
-## Install system dependencies
+## Prepare to install system dependencies using OS packages
These are packages that the software depends on: third-party software used to
parse documents, host the site, and so on. There are also packages that contain
headers necessary to compile some of the gem dependencies in the next step.
+<div class="attention-box">
+Note the commands in this section will require root privileges
+</div>
+
+### Using other repositories to get more recent packages
+
Add the following repositories to `/etc/apt/sources.list`:
**Debian Squeeze**
- cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-backports.list <<EOF
+ cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-extra.list <<EOF
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main contrib non-free
+ deb http://the.earth.li/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
+ EOF
+
+The squeeze-backports repository is providing a more recent version of rubygems, and the wheezy repository is providing bundler. You should configure package-pinning to reduce the priority of the wheezy repository so other packages aren't pulled from it.
+
+ cat >> /etc/apt/preferences <<EOF
+
+ Package: bundler
+ Pin: release n=wheezy
+ Pin-Priority: 990
+
+ Package: *
+ Pin: release n=wheezy
+ Pin-Priority: 50
EOF
-The repositories above let you install `wkhtmltopdf-static` and `bundler` using
-`apt`.
+**Debian Wheezy**
+
+ cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-extra.list <<EOF
+ # Debian mirror to use, including contrib and non-free:
+ deb http://the.earth.li/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
+ deb-src http://the.earth.li/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
+
+ # Security Updates:
+ deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main non-free
+ deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main non-free
+ EOF
**Ubuntu Precise**
cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-extra.list <<EOF
- deb http://eu-west-1.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse
- deb-src http://eu-west-1.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse
- deb http://eu-west-1.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse
- deb-src http://eu-west-1.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse
+ deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse
+ deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse
+ deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse
+ deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse
+ deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring universe
+ deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring universe
+ EOF
+
+The raring repo is used here to get a more recent version of bundler and pdftk. You should configure package-pinning to reduce the priority of the raring repository so other packages aren't pulled from it.
+
+ cat >> /etc/apt/preferences <<EOF
+
+ Package: ruby-bundler
+ Pin: release n=raring
+ Pin-Priority: 990
+
+ Package: pdftk
+ Pin: release n=raring
+ Pin-Priority: 990
+
+ Package: *
+ Pin: release n=raring
+ Pin-Priority: 50
EOF
-The repositories above let you install `wkhtmltopdf-static` using `apt`.
-`bundler` will have to be installed manually on Ubuntu Precise.
### Packages customised by mySociety
-If you're using Debian, you should add the mySociety Debian archive to your
+If you're using Debian or Ubuntu, you should add the mySociety Debian archive to your
apt sources. Note that mySociety packages are currently only built for 64-bit Debian.
+**Debian Squeeze, Wheezy or Ubuntu Precise**
+
cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mysociety-debian.list <<EOF
deb http://debian.mysociety.org squeeze main
EOF
+The repository above lets you install `wkhtmltopdf-static` and `pdftk` (for squeeze) using `apt`.
+
Add the GPG key from the
[mySociety Debian Package Repository](http://debian.mysociety.org/).
wget -O - https://debian.mysociety.org/debian.mysociety.org.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
+
+**Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu Precise**
+
You should also configure package-pinning to reduce the priority of this
-repository.
+repository - we only want to pull wkhtmltopdf-static from mysociety.
+
+ cat >> /etc/apt/preferences <<EOF
- cat > /etc/apt/preferences <<EOF
Package: *
Pin: origin debian.mysociety.org
Pin-Priority: 50
EOF
-If you're using some other platform, you can optionally install these
+**Debian Squeeze**
+
+No special package pinning is required.
+
+### Other platforms
+If you're using some other linux platform, you can optionally install these
dependencies manually, as follows:
1. If you would like users to be able to get pretty PDFs as part of the
@@ -126,13 +185,15 @@ everything will still work, but users will get ugly, plain text versions of
their requests when they download them.
2. Version 1.44 of `pdftk` contains a bug which makes it loop forever in
-certain edge conditions. Until it's incorporated into an official release, you
+certain edge conditions. This is fixed in the standard 1.44.7 package which is available in wheezy (Debian) and raring (Ubuntu).
+
+If you can't get an official release for your OS with the fix, you
can either hope you don't encounter the bug (it ties up a rails process until
you kill it), patch it yourself, or use the Debian package
compiled by mySociety (see link in [issue
305](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/305))
-### Install the dependencies
+## Install the dependencies
Refresh the sources after adding the extra repositories:
@@ -140,6 +201,9 @@ Refresh the sources after adding the extra repositories:
Now install the packages relevant to your system:
+ # Debian Wheezy
+ sudo apt-get install $(cat config/packages.debian-wheezy)
+
# Debian Squeeze
sudo apt-get install $(cat config/packages.debian-squeeze)
@@ -153,7 +217,7 @@ choice of packages.
## Install Ruby dependencies
To install Alaveteli's Ruby dependencies, you need to install bundler. In
-Debian, this is provided as a package (installed as part of the package install
+Debian and Ubuntu, this is provided as a package (installed as part of the package install
process above). You could also install it as a gem:
sudo gem install bundler