Refreshing www.wikidot.org

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Yesterday I started refreshing www.wikidot.org website — the home of Wikidot open source software.

Also we decided to move from managing our code in SVN to Git — more precisely to www.github.com. Our project page at GitHub is the following: http://github.com/gabrys/wikidot. Feel free to just follow it or even fork!

Last times, I made Wikidot insanely easy to install (check out the installation guide). It totally rocks (you can install Wikidot within 10 commands and no file editing).

I want to state, that this post is the last about the Wikidot open source software on this blog, as I'm running a new blog just about the Wikidot software at wikidot.org. This will be more practical to filter the posts and will push some life into that site.

At the end I want to invite you to the Wikidot IRC channel #wikidot at irc.freenode.org. That would be probably the easiest way to contact the Wikidot team without much formalism.

(As many posts here were about Wikidot software, this blog will be less regularly updated, but if really care about Wikidot software news, just follow the new one and you won't be spammed about posts about Python, BASH or other things. I hope that blog-split will really help everyone.)

Comments: 1, Rating: 1

Ubuntu And Intel AGN Wireless Card

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I finally managed to get a version of kernel/modules that work nice on my wireless card:

06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)

I had problems since late Hardy or Intrepid, using different kernel from that time with no luck. The worst case was connecting to WPA2 Enterprise (user/password) secured network. In worst subcase, I had the connection for 5-20 minutes and after that the network card or driver hanged and then only computer reboot used to help.

I was used to see iwlist scan errors like "Resource temporarily unavailable" or "Busy". dmesg showed different things on different kernels.

My frustration was great, when the problem started (after some upgrades that meant to improve things) to appear even on unsecured network. The connection was broken and I had to notoriously reconnect with my NetworkManager.

Finally I found a version of kernel that plays well.

It's from jaunty-proposed repository (enable it in your Synaptic or other package manager). Don't use jaunty-backports (this one was only broken). The package that solves things is: linux-backports-modules-jaunty version 2.6.28.12.16. The install should also update the linux-image to 2.6.18-12 (update your grub.conf as usual to include the changes).

After rebooting, run uname, to verify the kernel version:

# uname -a
Linux vaio 2.6.28-12-generic #43-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 1 19:31:32 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This is crucial here: 2.6.28-12-generic. The original Ubuntu kernel is 2.6.28-11 not -12.

Hope this helps someone (with VAIO SZ or any other Intel AGN-enabled notebook with Ubuntu).

Comments: 0, Rating: 0

Wikidot OpenSource Changes In Trunk

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I decided to wait no more and share what I've kept at my local disk. I committed the changes I've been working on to the repository.

The biggest change is Wikidot is now single wiki engine by default (you need additional configuration for the wiki farm mode).

What demonstrates the change is the simplified installation process.

Now it's as simple as installing any other software or service:

1. install the dependencies
   • for Ubuntu: sudo aptitude install lighttpd php5 php5-cli tetex-bin tetex-extra gs-gpl imagemagick libmagic1 subversion postgresql-8.3 php5-tidy php5-pgsql php5-gd zip make
2. get the code
   • svn co http://svn.wikidot.org/repos/wikidot1/trunk/ wikidot-install-dir
   • cd wikidot-install-dir
3. if on Ubuntu: configure conf/wikidot.ini and set user at [db] section to your login name
4. prepare database (create role and database)
   • as user postgres: make prepare_db
5. build Wikidot: configure files and make initial dabatase
   • as you: make
   • this prints a secret URL at the end, you'll use it to configure Admin password
6. start Wikidot
   • ./wikidotctl start
7. set Admin password
   • use your browser and navigate to the secret URL make prints at the end

We would like to finally create Debian/Ubuntu packages for that (once it gets more stable and have some bug fixed). So keep tuned!

Comments: 0, Rating: 2

Wikidot OpenSource Development Direction

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Today we though that we might completely change the direction for Wikidot OpenSource. This would deprecate the previous Wikidot 1.0 Roadmap. Also this solution deprecates wdLite (which was a big dirty hack).

Single wiki mode

The main difference is introducing a new Wikidot installation mode: "sigle wiki mode" and setting it as the default instead of "wiki farm mode".

What does it mean?

• you don't have to bother about:
  • domains (DNS)
  • mail configuration
  • root access (you can start Wikidot on custom port — default 8080)
• you get direct administration panel for managing users

But:

• you get only ONE single wiki
• you cannot create more wikis
• every IP/DNS address pointing to the started server (and corresponding port) displays THE wiki
• no mail invitations or password recovery
• no HTTPS

Lighttpd

Our main webserver is now Lighttpd, we forget about Apache. We can do this, because now you can run your regular Apache server on :80 port and Lighttpd serving Wikidot on :8080 (or other). They don't overlap, so there's no need to keep the compatibility.

Wikidot is a full web service with its dedicated web server running on separate port. This is the philosophy.

Scripts

To make Wikidot easily installable, we're going to create a script (possibly a Makefile) that will simplify the whole process. It would be 4 steps:

• install dependencies
• setup the database
• edit ini file (supply database credentials)
• make

Dependencies are Lighttpd, PHP, PostgreSQL, ImageMagick and maybe a few other things. Each of them can be installed without root access, but with root access it would be just as easy as

• aptitude install lighttpd php5-cgi postgresql-8.3 ImageMagick

(or so)

Running/stopping Wikidot:

• ./wikidotctl start
• ./wikidotctl stop

Next steps

Once all this is done (which isn't too much work BTW), we could make a *.deb package, that would take care of dependencies, database, creating a special user for wikidot, setting the root directory by convention and installing init script in proper place. Then you would just:

• /etc/init.d/wikidot start/stop/restart

This should kill all Wikidot-is-to-hard-to-install issues.

… upgrade to wiki farm

Once you have your single-wiki Wikidot up and running you may want to upgrade to full featured wiki farm solution. The one-wiki would become the main wiki (as is www.wikidot.com for the Wikidot.com service), other wikis would be able to be created. On the other hand, as your getting more powerful, you need to configure your DNS (have a domain-class just for your wiki farm), mail service and move the service to the main HTTP port (80).

The hardest thing

Q: What is the hardest thing to do in that plan?
A: The hardest thing is to create a module to manage wiki users.

This should not be too hard, so in the overall, this should work!

I'm waiting for your opinions.

Comments: 8, Rating: 1