Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -
Number of replies: 34

Gentoo user here.

Ive emerged moodle-3.2.2 package, configured it (via editing main config file), browsed to <mysrvaddr>/moodle, Installer popped up, and then:

License (agrred > Next)

All settings test (OK > Next)

and now Im stuck for >10 mins, next page displays Installation ... System and hangs !!!

What to do?


Follow up: Ive refreshed (ctrl+f5) and now there is box telliung me that

"

Config table does not contain version, can not continue, sorry.

More information about this error

It is usually not possible to recover from errors triggered during installation, you may need to create a new database or use a different database prefix if you want to retry the installation.

"

On the linked page, it was stated to go to <moodle>/version.php and correct value of $version in db accordingly. When I go to <moodle>/version.php I get blank page.


What to do?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to W L

Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Start again.  This time, do not edit config file, let moodle installer do that for you...see if it that helps.

In reply to Emma Richardson

Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Same story. No luck

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

First I have heard of Gentoo - when you reinstalled, did you recreate the database?  Did you make sure it is in utf8 barracuda format?

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Emma Richardson

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Steps Ive taken

(in console as root)

emerge --unmerge www-apps/moodle-3.2.2 # uninstalls moodle with all its config files

emerge --depclean # checks if moodle pkg dependencies are used by other pkgs and removes them. Removed php-7 as well as mysql as they are dependand of moodle;

emerge -av moodle mysql-server mysql php-mysql phpmyadmin php # installs php, mysql and phpmyadmin

Now, I browsered to <domainName>/<moodle> and same story

In reply to W L

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Any help on this?

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

I'm not clear what you are trying to do?

In reply to Howard Miller

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Im trying to get Moodle in a workable state.

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Yep - we got that, but specifically. What's your plan to do that?

In reply to Howard Miller

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Plan? I just wanted to install it as any other admin would without any plan or whatsoever.

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

We seem to have... let's be polite... communication difficulty. Let's slow down...

- the commands above. What was your thinking behind those *particular* commands? What where you hoping they would do and didn't. 

Like many people here I expect, I'm unfamiliar with Gentoo so please don't assume we know how stuff that's Gentoo specific works. 

It's always good to have a plan though wink

If those commands run Moodle from some sort of package manager, then I would strongly discourage you from doing that. Install the dependencies (PHP, MySQL, Apache or whatever) and then download Moodle from here. Follow the installation instructions. That way we can help you as we will have no idea what the Gentoo package manager does with Moodle.

In reply to Howard Miller

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Gentoo package manager (its called Portage and you invoke it with emerge +params), does four things (with Moodle package; as with 99% of others):


1. Downloads source (usually in tar.bz format),

2. Unpacks it to /tmp folder,

3. Compiles it,

4. Installs compiled app


Afterwards you (normally) have working app. There may be some config tweaks needed from time to time.

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

As above, use a package manager for everything else but not Moodle. 

In reply to Howard Miller

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -
why is that?
In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Because Moodle works better when installed from the basic installer download.  We have a hard time helping because we do not know what the package manager has done to the basic code in the compilation process.  

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

What documentation have you read?  I.e https://docs.moodle.org/32/en/Step-by-step_Installation_Guide_for_Ubuntu - which even though is Ubuntu is still Linux based.  I followed it on Xubuntu and it worked.

In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

There is no need for me to read docs on how to perform simple tasks like installing software in Gentoo. Its most commonly command used in system. 


If problem arises, there are logs (very verbose in Gentoo), and thats what one should read in case of problems, not docs. Thats because docs are not system-specific; they are program-specific.

After consulting logs, one can (and should) look for the answer in docs and - if not found - use Google, or ask on forums.

BTW: I consulted Moodle docs, and - honestly - it sucks. Its worst written docs Ive ever dealt with.

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

But if you're having a problem installing Moodle then you logically need to read and understand the specific program documentation in order to make sense of the platform specific logs.  If you search on Google then you'll get lots of answers and not all of them helpful or correct or specific.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

I think we have reached an impasse.

We try to help but we just get insulted and the help thrown back. Moodle isn't for everybody. You are one of these people. 

Shall we just stop here?

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Richard Oelmann -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Issue would appear to be with the Gentoo package. Therefore you need to seek help from the package maintainer, Anthony Basile - https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/www-apps/moodle

This is not a generic Moodle issue as Moodle is regularly installed on many operating systems using the package downloaded from Moodle.org as suggested by Howard above (I currently have Moodle 3.2.2 on a Mint laptop - localhost, a CentOS virtual machine and multiple Ubuntu web servers, all using the standard MOODLE provided download, it works perfectly every time). The issue would therefore appear to be with the way it has been packaged specifically for Gentoo and you therefore need to seek support from whoever has done that as it is not, as far as I can tell,  a package directly supported by MoodleHQ and can only be supported by community users who may have installed it through the Gentoo package - which is NOT recommended by Moodle or anyone in the community.

I have also just installed it as a test on a Gentoo virtual machine, using the standard MOODLE download and instructions, not the Gentoo package, and again, it works fine. This, to me anyway, confirms my suspicion that the issue is with the Gentoo package or your way of working with that package, not with Moodle itself.


You also state that your MoodleData folder is in /home/user (an uncommon practice in Linux powered webservers in my experience, except where it is on shared hosting and controlled by the hosting company) and yet the script that is part of the package has this line

local MOODLEDATA="${MY_HOSTROOTDIR}"/moodle

So unless your webroot is your home directory - again, uncommon unless on shared hosting, controlled by .htaccess and certainly not anything I have ever seen recommended - then your moodledata location would appear to be in conflict with the script.

However, your comment to Howard that the package manager downloads, unzips, compiles, and installs is incorrect in this instance (though it might be for other packages). Moodle is not provided in a form that requires compiling, it is provided as a compressed file that simply needs unpacking int he correct location. Additionally, this package runs various scripts that purport to carry out some of the configuration of Moodle outside the normal flow of a standard Moodle installation, tweaking configurations and file locations and permissions as part of the package script that would normally be done as part of an installation by either moodle itself, or by the administrator setting it up.. So, again, I would point you back to seeking support or reporting a bug with the GENTOO package maintainers as this would appear to be an issue with their package and associated scripts and not one that the Moodle community is able to rectify or provide answers for.


On top of that, you state in another thread that you have followed the steps from the https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Moodle and yet that, as well as the code in the package refer directly to using Apache as the webhost, which you also say you are not doing. Either you have followed the wiki and instructions, or your haven't - if not and you are not using Apache as recommended in the Gentoo docs, then they probably wont be able to help you either.


So, from a collection of your posts, it appears you are not following Moodle standard installation instructions, but neither are you accurately following the Gentoo ones, yet you come across as being angry with and rude to the Moodle community for not being able to sort your problems out... hmmm.


Now I am not a Gentoo user, although I am a Linux user, and I have just found all that information in the last half hour looking at this issue for you, so your statement that you do not need to read any documentation is patently inaccurate. There is documentation, and code, there (both on Moodle.org and on the Gentoo package pages) to be looked at, which will direct you at the conclusion that the issue is around the Gentoo package provided by the GENTOO community, not the Moodle one.

Members of the community have done their best to provide support, but your unwillingness to look at any documentation or follow standard, recommended MOODLE installation instructions means we will struggle to provide further support.

Your options:

1. Follow the Moodle and community advice for installing based on a download (or git) from here and get whatever support we can give for that.

2. Continue with the Gentoo package (following their recommendations including using Apache) and seek support from the package maintainer, rather than from the Moodle community - this will probably involve posting some kind of bug report about the package which would appear to be faulty, but as it is provided independently by the Gentoo community not the Moodle one, that is impossible for me to confirm.

3. Go your own way, with a mixture of whatever webserver system you are using (you siad its not Apache, you didn't say what it was), Gentoo packages and whatever other combination of non-recommended methods you see fit and see if you can resolve the issue independently.


Richard Oelmann

Average of ratings: Useful (4)
In reply to Richard Oelmann

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

May it be called this or that I dont care.....

Ive just downloaded Moodle from its website, created DB, run installer and guess what happened?

Exactly same story. 

How would you explain this?

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi W L,

By 'exactly same story' do you mean this: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=350081#p1412583 ? As this thread has got long.

  • What package did you download?  What exact place did you download it from?
  • Did you remove everything that you'd done before and start from scratch?
  • Are you sure you're running the new installer site and not the old Gentoo package site?
  • Are there any errors on the browser console?
  • Are you installing any other contributed plugins at the same time?

G

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Did you turn on debugging in the config.php file?

Can you show us a screen shot on the environment page where everything checks ok?

Can you tell us specs on the server?

Can you tell us your database creation commands?

Are your moodle and moodledata folders writable by the webserver?

What web server are you using?

In reply to Emma Richardson

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Debugging set to OFF

As of specs, I will PM it to you

For DB management I use phpmyadmin. To create DB: either go straight to <IP>/phpma/ and create DB from form, or Moodle will doi that for you

My moodledata is writeable by web-server.

I use nginx. But we have @switch packet installed so we are able to switch to/from Apache at no time.

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Richard Oelmann -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
That the issue probably lies somewhere in the middle of all those things you don't care about - Apache, docs, advice from people trying to support you etc.

If you have downloaded Moodle from here AND followed the instructions properly, it works.

Ok lets go to back to basics:

Gentoo version? 

Webserver and version? 

Php version? 

Database and version? 

Moodle version - 3.2.2

Web root? 

File structure location of Moodle (the app folder itself)? 

File structure location of MoodleData? 

Please also upload a text file copy of your Moodle config.php (blank out specific URL and passwords as required) 

Thank you, 

Richard 

In reply to Richard Oelmann

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

@Richard

Emma has all the specs.

I will not share them in public

At least not here....

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Richard Oelmann -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Fine, that's upto you. I don't think I asked anything that would compromise your security or anything, but what you choose to share is entirely upto you smile

But based on your comment to Emma above -

1. Turn debugging ON

2. No, Moodle does not create the database for you: the Gentoo package might, its one of the additional script elements I was talking about previously. So if you have relied on Moodle to create your database then again I would point you to the actual instructions for installing Moodle. Moodle will create all the tables etc once you point it at the correct database etc, but it doesn't create that database (or the Db user) in the first place. Although hopefully you have actually done the other part of what you said and used phpmyadmin to do it anyway.


Richard

In reply to Richard Oelmann

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

He just sent me hardware specs - more than enough juice to run everything.  

In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Richard Oelmann -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Hardware was always unlikely to be the issue, certainly not what I asked about. But if WL doesn't want to share the info, that's entirely up to him/her/them. Happy to back out of this one - have tried to help, but have other things to do too.
In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Isn't Gentoo the Linux for the terminally geeky where you have to build everything from source yourself? wink

In reply to Howard Miller

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

Oh yes, it is. Thats why Im using it smile

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Did you actually create the database?  I don't see anywhere where you created the database or the moodledata folder...

In reply to Emma Richardson

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

/moodledata folder sits within /home/<user> dir with correct permissions.

DB is created, web server has r/w rights (its working as other webapps operates normally). Its Moodle which is not recognizing it for some reason.

In reply to W L

Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Did you delete and recreate the database when you tried again?  You can also turn debugging on in the config.php file which might tell you more.

In reply to Emma Richardson

Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Odp: Re: Moodle 3.2.2 (= latest available) on Gentoo

by W L -

yes, Ive deleted and recreated DB during installation.