Real need for better docs for noobs

LeeM

Interested to note Andrew Rodrigues comment in the dummies guide;

"So I’ve been wanting to write a NodeBB setup guide for someone with pretty much no development experience at all – potentially somebody who’s never even seen a terminal in their life. I’m hoping it will reduce the barrier of entry for those wishing to try NodeBB out."

So there is intent by the development team to provide info for people like me.

However the dummies guide makes one very big assumption - "that those wishing to try NodeBB out " - want to pay to try it - yes I agree ten bucks isn't much, but still why pay when there's a chance that Nodebb wont work on your operating system?

Andrews dummies guide doesn't include any minimum requirements for installation, for example I might be wrong, but Nodebb can only be installed on newer versions of windows? When I visited the Putty site there were numerous versions to download the majority of which were X86 and only one X64? Which should be used? Basic info like this is essential for a dummies guide!

I assure you I'm not a noob in every respect, I'm a highly regarded developer in my own field, I also run a popular open source project , and have been an active developer for almost 25 years, so if I'm struggling with it, imagine how an average user will be feeling, especially one that has "never even seen a terminal in their life"

So yes there is intent by the development team, but I think they have underestimated how much knowledge is required to use Nodebb.

I'm not going to comment about this anymore, it is completely obvious to me that the documentation isn't aimed at a huge proportion of potential users and for this reason I won't be using it. While this in itself is no loss, remember I could potentially reflect the opinion of hundreds of thousands of users, the only difference is that I care enough bring this issue to the attention of the development team, what they do with this info is entirely up to them.

I also think it speaks volumes that none of the admins or developers have made a comment.

a_5mith

Putty is a tool for connecting to a server via ssh, it doesn't host your nodebb for you.

It's not nodebbs fault that you only know how to use FTP and run install.php from a browser.

There are no minimum requirements for installation. if you want to install on windows, follow the windows guide:https://docs.nodebb.org/en/latest/installing/os/windows8.html

Oroton

while i agree with you completely,

if you have been developing for 25 years you are doing yourself a disfavor not learning command line/terminal.

pretty much any host/vps or dedicated will cost you.

All the new technologies, will require you to learn this new way of interacting with your host. And you need to move past static websites, and move to dynamic, interactive technologies.

think of it like moving away from pushrod carborettors to twin cam fuel injected.

and this thread is only a day or so old. Give the developers a bit of a break. I bet they don't get paid to do this, and probably have their own jobs

LeeM

@Oroton said:

while i agree with you completely,

if you have been developing for 25 years you are doing yourself a disfavor not learning command line/terminal.

pretty much any host/vps or dedicated will cost you.

All the new technologies, will require you to learn this new way of interacting with your host. And you need to move past static websites, and move to dynamic, interactive technologies.

think of it like moving away from pushrod carborettors to twin cam fuel injected.

and this thread is only a day or so old. Give the developers a bit of a break. I bet they don't get paid to do this, and probably have their own jobs

Hi Oroton, lol yes I really am that old

I realise host costs, the hosting fees for my OS project are very high, so it's not something I get hung up on ordinarily, I'm just not that keen on having to pay to test software.

Will definitely look at learning the terminal and other associated technologies, will need to get a new computer first though

Thanks for supporting me in this discussion, like I said I'm not going to push the matter of the documentation, instead I'm creating a skin that replicates the NodeBB look with Vanilla 2, which for me is a lot easier that learning new tech.

Been a pleasure and good luck with your projects, Lee

Oroton

@LeeM

openshift is free for up to 3 running projects

LeeM

@Oroton said:

@LeeM

openshift is free for up to 3 running projects

Awesome tip, am working my way through the install as we speak, having problems with installing ruby and an ssl error, but I'm getting there, ur a star

LeeM

WOW these programs are full of bugs and problems, finally managed to install all of the software required to use Openshift only to find there's issues with this too lol

Have you used Openshift?

Oroton

@LeeM

I believe it is only

Ruby and Git
that you should install. If you are after a really good tutorial for what to install use
https://developers.openshift.com/en/getting-started-windows.html#client-tools

and to run it on openshift, the docs is usefull (don't skip the first step) Then cut to openshift on PaaS
https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/nodebb/latest/nodebb.pdf

When it says to Exit SSH, close it down. and open it again
(when you get to the CD) section

LeeM

yeah I gave up on that and paid for digital ocean after all, followed the dummies guide and I can't set Nodebb up, getting lots of errors, there's actually quite a lot of stuff missing from that guide and I've had to search and solve using these forums, probably had 20 ERR messages during installation and when I typed "node app --setup" it replied with "The program node can be found in the following packages."

This software certainly isn't for the weak of heart lol

Thanks for the links though if I can't solve this I'll retry with your tips and tutorials.

jarey

@LeeM If you search this forum i've made the setup in openshift without error, following the guide and some suggestions another users kindly gave me.

Regards.

a_5mith

@Lee_m.

I'll take a look at the docs when I get in and make sure they still work. If needs be I can get you set up and running. Then you change your server passwd once it's up and running. Installation should only take about 5 minutes.

julian

@LeeM My apologies for the lack of a response (though of course, it was the weekend for 2/3rds of those days )

We do get excited when new people want to try NodeBB, but as others have kindly pointed out, it would be a full-time job if I were to devote my full attention to helping somebody install NodeBB. This is not to say that I actively don't help others, it's just that concessions have to be made if we want to keep developing NodeBB

This is why I'm especially grateful to the users who spend their time here, donating their time to helping others get up and running. They don't get compensated for their time, so it is very meaningful.

Now, onto the matter of getting you up and running. I will fully admit that there exists a moderate learning curve, especially if:

You come from a LAMP-stack background, or
You are not technologically inclined (e.g. a computer user, not a developer)

For those that fall into the second grouping, getting set up is an almost insurmountable task, and I mention this whenever I can:

WordPress installations weren't always simple one-click affairs. When I first discovered WordPress, or phpBB, or similar softwares, I had to sign up for a host, log in via ssh (what's PuTTY?), install mysql (what's mysql? what's phpmyadmin? what is apt-get?... and apt is the simpler way of installing things...), create a database (how do I do that?), set up apache (what's apache?), finangle the configs until it could serve the right folder, debug for hours as to why it's just showing "It works!", run the install script, and then and only then, start tweaking my install.

But nowadays, cloud hosting providers have distilled all of this into a single step. We've done the same with NodeBB on our hosting platform, and this is why we recommend going with our hosting if you don't want to deal with the headache of setting NodeBB up.

As a point of reference, back in those days, it took me hours (spread over days) to get everything set up properly. I was learning then, as you are learning now. Knowledge doesn't come quick, or free!

Personally, I wish installing NodeBB were easier. However, there are still many prerequisites that we simply cannot get rid of. Knowing what ssh is, and how to use it, is one. Over time these problems will be nullified (much like how Wordpress is a simple one-click install), but until then, you will have to bear with us

Many of the installation guides are community-driven. That is, they depend on the hard work of interested parties to ensure that the guide is up to date, and... you know, works. I install NodeBB on DigitalOcean boxes, and (very) occasionally, on Heroku, so those are the two I support.

Everything else is just a bonus

julian

@LeeM said:

... and when I typed "node app --setup" it replied with "The program node can be found in the following packages."

Sounds like you didn't install node.js.

Are you logged in as root? Your command line should show something like root@myserver:~#. Then you'll have to install the prerequisite software required for NodeBB:

# sudo apt-get install git nodejs nodejs-legacy npm redis-server imagemagick build-essential

Note: Keep in mind that # is not part of the command. Lots of people preface commands with # to mean "run this as the root user". If I were to tell you to run a command as a regular user, I would use $ instead. Just a relevant factoid.

julian

Okay, again, I will admit this can be intimidating for new users:

... especially because your desktop OS is Windows, but you're looking to install it on DigitalOcean, which is (probably) running Ubuntu.

I'm looking into providing a CloudInit script in order to distill the entire installation process into a single line. Stay tuned.

a_5mith

You think installing NodeBBs confusing. Try making sense of this:

LeeM

@a_5mith said:

@Lee_m.

I'll take a look at the docs when I get in and make sure they still work. If needs be I can get you set up and running. Then you change your server password once it's up and running. Installation should only take about 5 minutes.

Wow ... That's a very generous offer How do I do that and does it matter that I already tried to install it once? Many, many you're too kind ...

PitaJ

I'm gonna build a GUI installer for Windows that will also be an update manager. It will be built in NW.js, so it can be ported to Linux, OSx, etc.

LeeM

@julian said:

@LeeM My apologies for the lack of a response (though of course, it was the weekend for 2/3rds of those days )

We do get excited when new people want to try NodeBB, but as others have kindly pointed out, it would be a full-time job if I were to devote my full attention to helping somebody install NodeBB. This is not to say that I actively don't help others, it's just that concessions have to be made if we want to keep developing NodeBB

This is why I'm especially grateful to the users who spend their time here, donating their time to helping others get up and running. They don't get compensated for their time, so it is very meaningful.

Now, onto the matter of getting you up and running. I will fully admit that there exists a moderate learning curve, especially if:

You come from a LAMP-stack background, or

You are not technologically inclined (e.g. a computer user, not a developer)

For those that fall into the second grouping, getting set up is an almost insurmountable task, and I mention this whenever I can:

WordPress installations weren't always simple one-click affairs. When I first discovered WordPress, or phpBB, or similar softwares, I had to sign up for a host, log in via ssh (what's PuTTY?), install mysql (what's mysql? what's phpmyadmin? what is apt-get?... and apt is the simpler way of installing things...), create a database (how do I do that?), set up apache (what's apache?), finangle the configs until it could serve the right folder, debug for hours as to why it's just showing "It works!", run the install script, and then and only then, start tweaking my install.

But nowadays, cloud hosting providers have distilled all of this into a single step. We've done the same with NodeBB on our hosting platform, and this is why we recommend going with our hosting if you don't want to deal with the headache of setting NodeBB up.

As a point of reference, back in those days, it took me hours (spread over days) to get everything set up properly. I was learning then, as you are learning now. Knowledge doesn't come quick, or free!

Personally, I wish installing NodeBB were easier. However, there are still many prerequisites that we simply cannot get rid of. Knowing what ssh is, and how to use it, is one. Over time these problems will be nullified (much like how Wordpress is a simple one-click install), but until then, you will have to bear with us

Many of the installation guides are community-driven. That is, they depend on the hard work of interested parties to ensure that the guide is up to date, and... you know, works. I install NodeBB on DigitalOcean boxes, and (very) occasionally, on Heroku, so those are the two I support.

Everything else is just a bonus

Hi Julian, many thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response, of course I appreciate you can't dedicate your time to a single user, but in my defense I wasn't asking for help (though it will be very gratefully received), my intent was to point out the docs deficiencies and so help the project grow by opening it up to a larger audience.

Other than that thanks for the useful tips, still not entirely sure what a lot of it means but I guess I have to start somewhere, but one thing I'll promise you, if I do manage to work out how it all works I'll create an install guide for apache people.

best, Lee

Shaun

Some of the responses here sound a little defensive, as if admitting that NodeBB's documentation is in an immature state would be impugning the dignity of the NodeBB team. The first part is true and the second simply doesn't follow.

@LeeM There's a ton of support available right here. Yes, the documentation could use some "dumbing down" for users at your proficiency level, but the development of NodeBB and the technologies it's built on are all happening very fast right now, and trying to make a comprehensive guide for every possible circumstance would not be very efficient use of time. Instead, if you have problems and can't figure them out from Google, this forum exists to ask for help.

If you'd like to test the system out locally, I highly recommend doing it on Ubuntu. Redis, node and their various dependencies are just easier to set up there, because it's their native environment. If you're using a Windows desktop, there are free virtualization products you can use to set up a virtual server.

Windows 7: Download and install Windows Virtual PC from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702
Windows 8.1: Install the Hyper-V feature, instructions here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/hyper-v-run-virtual-machines
Or Oracle VirtualBox, found here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads (you would want the version for Windows hosts)

When you build a virtual computer with any of the above options, it will ask you to supply installation media for the new VM's operating system. This should be an ISO file for either Ubuntu Desktop (a little easier to use because it includes a GUI) or Ubuntu Server (more suitable for a production server, but not required for testing things out) which you can download here: http://www.ubuntu.com/download

The installation process for Ubuntu is very straight forward. It will ask you some simple questions and then configure itself appropriately. You can find step-by-step guides to assist you with that on the Internet if you're interested. This whole process might take you two hours (from installing the hypervisor to finishing the installation of your Ubuntu OS), and it doesn't require changing much on your real computer (the hypevisor software has to be installed, but after that all of the changes you make are inside a virtual sandbox and you can destroy it and recreate it any time you want).

You will need to learn to use the Ubuntu Linux command-line for this, but I promise it's not as daunting as it probably seems. From this point, you just follow the step-by-step guide supplied in the NodeBB docs to get an installation up and running. Again, there will be more questions and responses, but the documentation does tell you what to do and if you get stuck, you can always come back here and ask for help.

Shaun

Also ... Node doesn't need Apache the way PHP does. You can make it run through Apache, by configuring Apache as a reverse proxy (documentation here: https://docs.nodebb.org/en/latest/configuring/proxies/apache.html) but that's just extra work (and another component to break) if you're setting up a test system to play with (and for production, I'd strongly recommend Nginx over Apache).