Is Easy Install Script being phased out?

@revant_one I must applaud your commitment to the project. I am in the middle of pushing an upgrade from a much older version to v13.8 over the next 2 months. I promise I will begin working out how to get containers working from a layman perspective. It will not be a rapid document development project at my end just yet while I am focused on a large client upgrade. However, I will start devoting some weekend time to the task.

It would not be easy for me without a resource like yourself. Even then I cannot promise it to be easy. If you can answer questions by PM on occasion while I work on this, then I will try to have something working as soon as I have figured out enough of the process.

Thanks again for the offer of help.

BKM

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I agree with this. The learning curve is not on installing frappe-docker but on the Docker itself. I tried 2-3 times to install frappe-docker in a never-have-docker-installed-before computer but always failed. And since Iā€™m not familiar with Docker, I have to re-learn from start.

The problems is the matching of easy-install script, version used, distro used, and familiarity to computer (many users are business users, not techie).

During ERPNext v10-11 I ā€˜almostā€™ always successfully manually installed in Ubuntu and Mac. But for v12 never succeed. My colleague always successfully install using easy-install.

Then I switch to CentOS. At first I got problem, but then I found a guide (which also needed to tinker with). From then on I always use CentOS (now switch to AlmaLinux) have my own tinkered guide. And it was always successfull.

And I am one of those business userā€¦

In that thread, youā€™re talking about installing multiple benches on a single server, which is black-belt level sysadmin stuff. Comparing that to the single bench Easy Install script isnā€™t exactly apples to apples.

Iā€™m currently installing a single bench, multi-tenant production setup. Iā€™ll post back when Iā€™m done.

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Would love to try this. Looking forward to your method. Never tried docker but no harm in trying.

And here it is! Containerized multi-tenant production:

This took about 50 minutes from start to finish. When I say ā€œstart to finishā€, I mean exactly that: from when I decided to start trying to when I was completely done. It would have been a lot quicker if I didnā€™t have to wait for DNS to propagate. Of those 50 minutes, about 10 of them were active. The rest were waiting for things to download.

I loaded up a fresh VPS instance (Ubuntu 20), installed docker and docker-compose using instructions I googled, and from there I did what the frappe_docker README file told me to do. Thatā€™s it. I have nearly zero experience with docker. This is literally the second time Iā€™ve used it. The first was setting up the same container for development.

Iā€™m sure there are pitfalls that I was lucky to miss, but this is by far the easiest and cleanest way to install ERPNext that has ever existed. If anyone hits problems, we can troubleshoot and improve the documentation together.

This is the future. Scripts are dead.

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Hereā€™s my take on this.

Several of the people whoā€™s replied (@revant_one, @peterg, @rmehta, myself) are experienced, veteran software developers. Weā€™ve been writing code for decades. We know half a dozen languages. We have a knack for learning and adopting new technologies.

But overall in the business software community, we are a minority. Does it matter that I feel Installing ERPNext is easy? Probably not. My experience is atypical.

For everyone else, the experience is much different. My evidence is this:

  • Try searching the forums for the words ā€œinstallā€, ā€œinstallationā€, or ā€œupgradeā€.
  • Read the articles, and see what the typical User Experience has been.

I love Docker. Itā€™s portable, and stable, and incredibly useful (once youā€™ve learned it). The work @revant_one has done is fantastic.

But I have -low- confidence that I can email this link to a random System Administrator in Seattle, and believe they will successfully get ERPNext online, configured for their environment, and fully functional.

Later, what happens when theyā€™re prepared move into Production? Manual install is the last-remaining option, yes? Again, not the easiest thing for the average user to learn.

I would prefer to see ERPNext become more-inclusive. Some of you feel that removing Easy Install, and reducing the supported installation options from 3 to 2 accomplishes that.

I disagree.

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Also, if youā€™re going to deprecate something this well-known? Announce it with confidence. Write about it, explain your justification, and be transparent about it.

Sometimes itā€™s not what you say or do.
But rather how you say or do it.

I doubt Iā€™d be nearly this upset, if this change had been announced professionally. Instead of being discovered by accident by a forum user, when they happened to examine the comments on a README file.

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At times on these forums, developers have dismissed user complaints with the phrase ā€œSend a pull requestā€. Many have argued that this response is simplistic and unhelpful, and to some extent at least I agree. Maintainers are cautious about merging third-party code into master, and itā€™s hard for individuals to invest resources in a moving target.

Here, however, is a great opportunity for community involvement. If users feel that the Easy Install script is worth the development effort required to maintain it, all it will take is time and/or money.

Thatā€™s a really great point. And I agree.
Forking the easy install script, and maintaining separately, is absolutely a viable option.

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:sweat_smile:

Again, I ask for specific steps outlined in the documentation for multi-site production setup. Iā€™m not saying itā€™s not thereā€¦ I just need you to help point it out as Iā€™ve gone over the pages a number of times and seem to be missing it!

Thanks

Much as Iā€™m a hard-core fan of Frappe and the Team, I have to admit that this is one area that needs to be looked into seriously. Up till today, Iā€™m not sure thereā€™s been any official announcement about the Chat featureā€¦ Some organizations were actively using it for their internal communications and suddenlyā€¦ poof! ā€¦it was gone. Same thing with the Cordova Mobile Appsā€¦ Users just suddenly realized they were no longer working!

Really hope we can work out a more effective communication system when it comes to things like this

Cheers

At least the loss of Web Forms was announced in Release Notes.

Granted, their successor (DocType Layouts) are essentially broken. And are not nearly 1:1 in terms of features.

But it was announced. :smile:

Thereā€™s no trick to it. When you get to the step on this page labeled ā€œcreate ERPNext siteā€, do it twice: once for your first site, and a second time for your second.

Thatā€™s exactly what I tried to do! If you go through the thread I referenced, the issue was really at the point of trying to add the new site to the proxyā€¦

The thread you referenced describes a multi-bench setup. Did you also try following the single-bench setup? As the instructions say, single-bench is a much simpler configuration to set up.

Ahhhā€¦ I get your point now. Will give this a shot when next I have the opportunity

Thanks a lot for the pointers :+1:t3:

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I beg to differ:
What is so hard about maintaining the easy install script?

This is not a change - the reality is no one has put their hands up to maintain it. Frappe team is already full of tasks and maybe does not use this internally at all.

Since lot of people here claim to be ā€œexpertsā€, like @revant_one would be nice if one of you can put your hand up and say, ā€œI will maintain easy installā€ - that is how it works. All of us make a living off ERPNext - letā€™s also do a bit for the community.

All you need to do is send a pull request :wink:

I donā€™t get this rant. Fix something man. This is open source - you guys have been around for years

Please see @gavindsouza answer on why its so hard to maintain easy install script.

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