Hello fellow Moodle enthusiasts! I'm working on installing a Moodle instance on Godaddy's shared servers, but their MySQL database is format is limited to Antelope. I had a conversation with one of their techs, and was informed that there is a suggestion to update to Barracuda, but there has been no momentum on that initiative. So my question to your guys...what is the latest version of Moodle that works with Antelope database format? Thanks in advance!
I have watched some posts from Howard, my respected expert on these topics, and if I understand him correctly, I think that he said that Barracuda is not required if you set utf8-general encoding, but is needed if you want to use the recommended utf8mb4 _unicode encoding.
I haven't tried this myself, but you might want to explore. I also hate to speak for Howard, but you might see him jump in here and clarify.
The real issue is how to run Moodle on lower cost hosting systems.
Just so that you know, I run my small Moodle (12-15 university courses/year, 500 students/year) on a GoDaddy VPS. For the way that I use Moodle, the VPS has been running extremely well. A VPS gives one the ability to do more custom configuration of your server, but does require more study.
Hi Rick. Thanks for the useful information. I was previously using Godaddy's Installatron, but it looks like i'll need to engage this endeavor manually. I'll definitely look into updating this setting, and update shortly.
I just checked with Godaddy, and it looks like i'll need to update my account in order to configure UTF-8 encoding. Outside of reconfiguring the encoding, it looks like i'll need to perform a manual install with a version of Moodle that supports Antelope.
Learning to install Moodle manually will pay dividends in the long run. It's not that hard. Few folks here in Moodle.org that have been around for a while would ever recommend using Installatron(s).
It's been a while since I installed Moodle on a hosted server, so I won't be able to guide you much further. However, here are a few ideas:
1) Create your Moodle database using phpMyAdmin. Note the username, database name, and database user. Verify that the tables are utf8_unicode_ci.
2) Create your moodledata folder one level down from public_html. Set it's permissions to 0777.
3) I would install moodle in its own folder. Download the Moodle to your public_html folder, unzip it. It will likely unzip into its own folder.
4) Go to www.(yourdomain).com/moodle, and the installation will start.
0) Read Moodle's installation documentation. (Again, this is step zero.)
Thanks for your help Rick. Its definitely appreciated!