Re: [GENERAL] Installation simplicity

There appears to be some difference between the RPM Postgres distribution
and what you would expect from compiling the binaries.

I don't know what the problem was, but rather than try to figure the thing
out, I finally removed the RPM's downloaded and compiled according to the
documentation.

That was not necessarily easy and - coming from a Windows background - not
all of the directions made sense. But it seems to have worked so far.

However, there is absolutely no reason - none why the RPMs should not
precisely - precisely - match the suggested configuration set forth in the
documentation. It should start and work first time, every time. No
problem, no hassle. 'rpm -Uvh 'whatever'' - and that's it. Just like
apache. I no longer even attempt to install the RedHat postgres. I just
download and install. I do not know what the problem with the rpm's is,
but it is too annoying for me to bother figuring it out.

RPMs are for people who do not know how or are not comfortable with
compiling and installing Linux distributions. It defeats their purpose to
expect these people to jump through hoops while installing rpms. The rpm
should do all - repeat all - the work for them.

And it is not responsive to state "Oh, you forgot to squiggle the
doohickey."

Regards,

Duncan C. Kinder
dckinder(at)mountain(dot)net

----- Original Message -----
From: Charles Tassell <ctassell(at)isn(dot)net>
To: <pgsql-general(at)postgreSQL(dot)org>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Installation simplicity

> RTFM :) Most of the installation issues you bring up below are in the
> install.txt file. It's a pretty foolproof document (type this, if you see
> this, do that, else do this...) The only problem is that it is long,
which
> may seem a bit daunting to newbies. Maybe a INSTALL-QUICK.TXT file that
> just has the important 13 steps, and a note at the top that you can get
> precompiled packages for the different distributions at a given URL?
>
> At 11:56 PM 10/18/99, Lincoln Yeoh wrote:
> [snip]
> >Things people would probably like to know:
> >0) You need to know what to do next.
> >1) You have to know that you have to do initdb first, and who does it,
and
> >what happens after that. Same for createdb.
> >2) Know how to set it to run everytime the system boots up...
> >3) How do you stop/restart it? When do you need to do that?
> >4) How to get to that SQL stuff? Ah Psql, not postsql :).
> >5) What's with the createdb as compared to CREATE DATABASE via psql. You
> >don't know that createdb is just a script which calls psql- it could be
> >some magical thing that you MUST run if not bad things happen later :).
> >6) What can you change? And what do you do if you change it? (relinking?
> >recompiling? restart?).
> >
> >And if you suddenly want to turn on access controls - passwords for users
> >and stuff, the admin approach changes completely! You CANNOT use the
> >scripts (remember, you didn't know they were just scripts) you must shift
> >to psql, and the webdocs aren't as clear on that. Createdb? Now
different.
> >Add user? Also different.
> >
> >You need to know similar things for other systems. But for some reason
many
> >users don't find these things as obvious when installing postgres for the
> >first time.
> >
> >However all in all Postgres ain't that bad (a few other commercial
database
> >engines spring to mind). Still I hope we aren't aiming that way ;).
> >
> >For rule 0, sticking a basic HowTo with the source may help.
> >
> >All this is not unexpected though: practically ALL databases engines are
> >different. What to run as backend/daemon, how to run, how to stop it from
> >running, what to run to admin it. Dates, times (how to set a field's date
> >and time to "now"), currency, numbers, indexes, counter vs serial vs auto
> >increment vs sequences+insert triggers. They're all different. And the
> >thing is all these details are rather important for practically any
decent
> >database app!
> >
> >Many times after we figure stuff out, we no longer understand why it was
so
> >hard in the first place. This is a problem when writing docs for
newbies..
> >
> >Cheerio,
> >
> >Link.
> >
> >[1]
> >Is it just me, or is installing Oracle based on the Oracle installation
> >manual like doing surgery following an academic textbook? e.g. chapter 1
> >has 100 ways to do an incision. Chapter 2 has 20 ways on sewing up.
Chapter
> >3 discusses anaesthesia. Chapter 4- tying blood vessels, (by the way
please
> >refer to chapter 2 for more sewing hints)..
> >Also see Appendix A: Ways to hold scalpels. Appendix B: Washing.
> >And so on. In the end one has to go to the web and look for a HOWTO :).
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >************
> >
>
>
> ************
>
>