Moodle 2.0 system requirements

Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Tim Hunt -
Number of replies: 18
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We know have already annoyed just about everyone by making Moodle 2.0 require PHP 5.2.8 in order to to get bug-free build in zip support (and a few other things).

Well I am afraid there are a few other system requirement increases we would like to propose. Hopefully these will cause much less trouble, anyway I wanted to start a thread here to see if people thought they would cause trouble.


1. Require MySQL >= 5.0.

We have had a minimum requirements of MySQL 4.1.16 since Moodle 1.6. However MySQL 5+ has much better support for subqueries, and other useful parts of standard SQL. In particular, the work I did on filters for MDL-7336 which uses a GROUP BY clause in a subquery does not work in MySQL 4. Since MySQL 5 was released in December 2003, I think we could safely increase the requirements now.


2. Require Postgres 8.2+

Postgres 8.2 introduced the INSERT ... RETURNING ... syntax which means that you can instert a row into a table and get the id of the new row back in a single operation. This would simplify the code in our Postgres driver, and also increase performace. Postgres 8.2 was released 2006-12-05. (My view is that anyone sensible enough to use Postgres is sensible enough to keep their server up-to-date, so this wouldn't be a problem.)


Some perhpas slightly less serious suggestions from the Developers' Jabber chat:

3. Petr Skoda would like to suggest that the minumum supported version of Oracle should be MySQL 6 tongueout.

4. Several of us really wish we could officially drop support for IE6, but I fear that enough peole are still using it that we will have to go on working around Microsoft's inadequacies.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Dan Poltawski -
Both requirements are in Debian stable so it passes my test of acceptableness wink

I would be keen to see the postgres bump to even stretch to postgres 8.3 as it seems to have a fairly decent improvement in my (unscientific) experience - but its relatively new.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Penny Leach -
I just want to chime in and suggest that our minimal supported version of Oracle should be PG 8.2 rather than Mysql smile
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In reply to Penny Leach

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Martín Langhoff -
She beat me to it! Damn smile

In any case, the MySQL story is about to get very interesting with all the forks. I wonder if there are any adventurous people out there running Moodle against the various hip (and supposedly fast) cousins of MySQL.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7) -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
My vote:

+ MySQL 5.0
+ PostgreSQL 8.3
+ MSSQL 9.0 (aka 2005)
+ Oracle 10

And, for sure:

+ drop IE6 support

Ciao smile
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In reply to Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Frank Ralf -
That's what my shared hosting provider says:

PHP version 5.2.8 is required and you are running 5.2.6
MySQL version 4.1.16 is required and you are running 5.0.32

So no problem with MySQL but with such bleeding edge PHP version wink

I got mixed feelings with IE6. I still use it myself because for my daily work I use FF3 and I shied away from IE7 but might give IE8 a try after all those positive reviews.

But I suppose that a lot of educational institutions still use IE as default browser and won't upgrade anytime soon.

Only my 2 €-cents.
Frank
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Martin Dougiamas -
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My vote +1 also for dropping MySQL 4 support in Moodle 2.0 (and I agree with Penny about 5.0.25)

Postgres 8.2 seems fine to me also if it brings us SQL we can use a lot.

As for the other suggestions we have to distinguish between requirements and recommendations, especially when it comes to client software. I think we need to keep IE6 for example (just a bit longer), and though PG 8.3 may run faster is it really different in how we use it from in Moodle?
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Davo Smith -
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Please don't drop IE6 just yet - we're still stuck with it in college, due to compatibility problems between our student MIS and IE7.

Maybe we'll find a way around it soon, but for the moment, it's pretty essential...

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In reply to Davo Smith

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Lucian DiPeso -
I would vote for dropping it. Microsoft will also be dropping all support for IE 6 in about a year, IE 8 is already out, and it is an 8-year-old browser.
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In reply to Lucian DiPeso

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Ray Lawrence -
I would like to see this gone too, but in reality many clients are still using it.
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In reply to Ray Lawrence

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Petr Skoda -
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Please note this decision does not affect us right now, Moodle 2.0 may be released much later this year, or even next year. Many sites will not migrate immediately to 2.0, maybe 2.0.5 or even 2.1. In any case 1.9.x should be supported for at least 2 years from now (I would personally vote for 3 or 4).

Designing for IE6 is a really horrible experience, you may spend more time on hacking IE6 than implementing new feature. So no IE6 support means richer UI and 1/2 of development time sad

I personally think that no one should be using IE6 today for browsing of Internet because it is a horribly insecure and buggy system that does not respect majority of common web standards.

So the solution is to use IE6 for you outdated internal apps and use any other real browser for anything else.
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In reply to Petr Skoda

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Red Morris -
My vote would be to not support IE6 in 2.0.

Institutions have time to make the move as 2.0 is still a long way off. If people know now that they will need IE7+ by Christmas they have time to plan the upgrade. Being able to go to the bosses and say that they have to upgrade or they don't get to use the lovely new Moodle 2.0 should help with the persuading.

Thankfully our MIS has forced everyone onto IE7 at last, but even if it hadn't I'd be saying we should be upgrading to IE7 this side of Christmas
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In reply to Red Morris

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by sam marshall -
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You think:

(a) 'Until Christmas' is enough time to plan an upgrade to IE7?

(b) At 'Christmas' Moodle 2.0 (release version, not beta) is going to be imminent?

In both cases those assumptions seem pretty optimistic to me. smile Luckily, that actually makes your argument better...


Here we are in a position of supporting IE6, but with reduced graphical quality (and it's just about to get slightly more reduced, since I told our graphic designers they can use transparent PNG now, after they begged and pleaded etc.).

As a distance-learning institution, we can't make all our users install a browser, and even if we updated our official requirements, I doubt anyone ever reads them. smile

As of last check a few weeks ago, and assuming my script gets it right, 16% of our requests still come from IE6.

(IE7+8 is 61%; Firefox 20%; Safari on Mac 2%, Chrome 1%, other including Opera, iPhone, other mobile devices <1%.)

Unless IE6 usage has declined to the ~1% range by the time Moodle 2 is released* - which is possible, if the decline speeds up somewhat - I would personally be concerned if Moodle 2 means that IE6 doesn't work in some significant manner, for example that IE6 users cannot access useful functionality or cannot read text etc.

However, if it just looks a bit poor, or if any problematic area are restricted to/can be dealt with by themes [as seems likely if tim's evil plan comes to fruition] then that's ok for us.

--sam

* Or to be more specific, some months after Moodle 2 is released; we won't be capable of deploying it immediately.
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In reply to Petr Skoda

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Niall Julian -
As much as I'd loved to see IE6 dropped like a hot potatoe, it actually hurts me to say don't drop it yet. About 85% of our users are on IE6 with no sign of them moving to IE7 any time soon (thats the beauty of the UK health service... they still have desktops running Win2k!!). This forces me to use IE6 daily to ensure everything works ok for the majority of our users. Frustrating as hell but no choice in the matter really.
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In reply to Niall Julian

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Red Morris -
Remember, this isn't a discussion about dropping IE6. It's about whether IE6 will be a barrier to using Moodle 2.0
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Dan Ballance -
I think the php version is quite a push when so few distributions are carrying it. just checked ubuntu 9.04 and it doesn't have 5.2.8 - i suspect a lot of ubuntu servers are out there running moodle, some by not so experienced admins. but i also realise it's needed.

The mysql / pg sounds fine.

Re:IE6 i am torn. i lothe the thing with a passion, but i have to say i know of a few large educational organisations up here in west yorkshire still running it. i suspect home users may be high too.

i do think when you are developing software that is for the masses and will be used by the public sector you really have to take IE6 seriously. what about the skint kid who has been given some ancient computer and wants to connect to his school moodle - we need to think about how that child will be included in this new digital society.

having said that, as i think was said above, cosmetic issues shoudn't be a worry - particularly alpha png transparenncy. ie6 users may have to live with a few funny graphics so that designs can create contemporary designs, but i think core functionality must still work with ie6 imho,

dan
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In reply to Dan Ballance

Re: Moodle 2.0 system requirements

by Tim Hunt -
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Yes, we know the PHP requirements are a pain in the bum for everyone. It has been argued to death here. However, the fact remains that PHP 5.2.x has features we are relying on for the new files API work, and PHP <= 5.2.8 had bugs that we could not work around.
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