Better Install System

[ghost]

What were your thoughts a better install system. I could create a shell script that you basically do curl https://website.org/install.sh | sudo bash that would try and install all dependancies like MariaDB/MySQL, nginx, php-fpm/hhvm, and run setup. Or I could create a deb file that you just add to the apt repo list and it installs from there. Or I could make an ncurses interface that installs the program using a pesudo gui. Up to you on how it goes.

[BytewaveMLP]

I think the general best practice is an interactive Bash script that just installs dependencies and does some rudimentary set up for you, with instructions on how to complete things for yourself. Though, instructions to curl | bash probably aren't the best idea (may want to recommend reviewing the script contents, or provide a few hashes or something, perhaps also GPG sign the script). Either way, having an installer would be a good idea; possibly something to replace /install, or instruct the user to do so. The current way of setting everything up is manual and messy.

Also, good to see you again. :)

[ghost]

I think that for right now I will create a basic script that installs the dependancies but also runs the setup that /install would do, in the script as well.

So the flow would go like this:

1. User downloads setup.sh
2. The user can then review the script if they wish
3. Runs the script with sudo ./setup.sh
4. The script tries to detect to detect if a webserver is installed
5. If not, install nginx
6. Script tries to detect if php or hhvm is installed
7. If not, install hhvm if amd64 or php-fpm if not
8. Tries to detect if composer is available
9. If not, download composer
10. Download and unpack sleeti
11. Run composer install
12. Then run program setup (path setup, database setup, create admin user)
13. Done.

Later, the script could get more advanced if need be.

[BytewaveMLP]

Hmm... Not too sure about hhvm; I'm a little worried about compatibility there, because I don't recall whether they've fixed some of their compat bugs yet.

Otherwise, that sounds fine. Creating the admin user would be a bit annoying given the CSRF protections in place and lack of an API, but I suppose you could just hack together a script just for that that runs independently of sleeti.

Had I designed sleeti today, I'd have taken a number of different routes. But it's a lot to refactor at this point.

[ghost]

I ran through most of the dependancies and it looks like most of them work and support hhvm, except for guzzle and possible twig. I will have to do further testing on that front.

I was planning on probably mocking the Slim Environment in order to create the users and such. I think that that way would be the easiest.

[BytewaveMLP]

Are there any reasonable performance gains that justify breaking compatibility with popular libraries and possibly performing a major refactoring? From what I know, and after discussing this with a few other people, I'm not convinced HHVM is worth breaking compatibility for minuscule performance gains.

[ghost]

I'll have to do further benchmarks on my end. For now I'll stick with php-fpm with nginx.