Install dependencies

[borpin (Brian Orpin)]

@rostwald

To be fair - those code-dumps are better than nothing at all

Definitely!

@rostwald

Apart from NTP I think the “ufw” package

I think we already kicked that one into touch…

[pb66 (Paul)]

@rostwald

Yes, sorry about that.

No problem! We’ve all been there and it is frustrating, we’re glad you voiced an opinion.

@rostwald

Apart from NTP I think the “ufw” package is also unnecessary as it is completely unrelated to the emoncms installation/functionality and is just confusing if one tries to figure out the general dependencies for installation on other OSes.

Jury’s still out on this in my mind, I totally get what you say, not disputing any points made. But there is no better place for it than when installing the LAMP, it could be an optional step, but IMO it should not be moved elsewhere or omited from the emoncms install guide (or more accurately the LAMP install guide) that is a prerequisite for the actual emoncms install.

With a proper list of dependencies and why they are there, users can chose not to install ufw by omitting it from their own cut and paste, but we must cater for the masses which will be raspbarrypi/emonbase/emonPi users.

Similar situation apllies to redis, we recommend it, therefore it is in the command string, but not all users can or will install redis, it isn’t actually a mandatory “dependency” as such.

But we can all have differing opinions, finding the better solution for the broader audience is the key.

@Paul

I just wrote the messy sudo-code-dump.

And to be fair to you Paul, a lot of it was carried over from the previous guides, they’ve needed some attention for a while now. So any comments I’ve made are not directed at you, I know they are an accumulation of efforts.

@rostwald

It might be that I’m more old-fashioned about becoming root to get the job done and drop privileges afterwards instead of wasting my time typing sudo a couple hundred times a day.

That’s ok if you are fully aware of what your doing. When novice users are stepping through the guide copying and pasting the commands it is better to keep sudo in so novices can use, more advanced users like yourself can just copy from after the “sudo”. Although I do run my install scripts as root and manage the ownership and permisions explicitly as it goes, I don’t think that’s a viable approach for the guide, so I think all the sudo’s are most likely here to stay in the guide I’m afraid.

[Paul (Paul Reed)]

@pb66

And to be fair to you Paul, a lot of it was carried over from the previous guides, they’ve needed some attention for a while now. So any comments I’ve made are not directed at you, I know they are an accumulation of efforts.

I’ve always based OS updates on the previous version, because it’s a ‘reliable’ starting point, and just made edits where there is a change (such as Mariadb etc.).
Definitely not taken your comments personally, you are much more knowledgeable than I am in writing code & understanding the intricacies of the OS.
I do welcome a shared input into developing the build docs, and @borpin and yourself have made a considerable contribution.

PR’s are always welcome

Paul