Re: [Gnumed-devel] installing and using gnumed

[John DeSoi]

On Feb 19, 2004, at 9:34 AM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:

> I am simply amazed by the frequency this turns up. I would
> LOVE to understand the problems people have when installing
> GnuMed ! For me to get GnuMed onto a new machine is usually
> nothing more than:
>
> - make sure Python is installed
> - make sure mxDateTime is installed
> - make sure wxWindows/wxPython is installed
> - download from CVS
> - run
>
> (there really is no need to "install" GnuMed)

OK here is one data point for you. I spent the better part of a day 
trying to get GnuMed working on OS X. I followed the instructions 
carefully (I thought) but ran into a number of problems. One of the 
issues is having a Fink installation. I think this caused some things 
to get installed in /sw rather than /usr. I could never get the client 
working in Cocoa, but I finally got it to run with X Windows.

I also had problems because I have Postgresql installed in a 
non-standard location. So perhaps everything is easy if you have a new 
machine and everything is installed in the hardcoded locations where 
GnuMed expects them.

There were several errors in the instructions for setting up the 
database (sorry I did not record them -- I was too frustrated at this 
point). I finally was able to build the database structure. It looked 
to have the necessary test users/groups but none of them would allow me 
to login to the database. It was only after grepping source files that 
I found a SQL file to load that let me actually connect to the 
database.

> If I want to setup a database:
>
> - make sure PostgreSQL is installed and working
> - download from CVS
> - run redo-public.sh in server/bootstrap/
> - use

Compare this to what is in gnumed/client/doc/user-manual/pgsql.html 
which I was trying to follow. There is no mention of redo-public.sh. 
But there are a lot of other confusing instructions and inaccuracies. 
For example, the docs say things are in server/utils when they are 
really in server/bootstrap.

I do medical software development and find the concepts of GnuMed to be 
intriguing. But the installation experience alone led me to put it 
aside for now.

Best,

John DeSoi, Ph.D.