Anyone want an installer for Typo?

Anyone want an installer for Typo?.

If I’ve learned anything from Typo, it’s that Rails apps are a serious pain for first-time users to install. Here’s what it takes to get Typo (or any open-source Rails app) up and running on a random Unix box today:

  • You need a working database, like MySQL or PostgreSQL.
  • You need to know how to create at least two databases for Typo.
  • You need Ruby 1.8.4
  • You need rubygems installed.
  • You need Rails 1.1.x
  • You need Ruby drivers for your DB.
  • You need Ruby FCGI drivers installed
  • You need a web server with FCGI installed
  • You need to download Typo and figure out how to install it without a useful README.
  • You need to configure your web server to run Typo’s FCGI dispatcher.
  • You need to get all of the permissions right, especially if your web server runs under a different user ID then you normally use.

Sometimes I’m amazed that Typo has as many users as it does. . . .

Once Typo 4.0 is out, I’ll see what I can to do extract the Typo installer into a generic installer for lightweight Rails apps. I doubt that Typo is the only project that could use something like this.  [*scottstuff*]

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