Quinn

I encountered some problems while installing latest stable version of Drupal to my web server. Well, I could hope this happens only to me, but I found many says getting "blank page" after installation and stuff over places. Since I was able to manage to finish the installation with some tweeking, I thought I should put them together in one place, and sharing my experince probably would help some other people.

Server Environment:

• FreeBSD 6.0
• Apache 2.0.55
• MySQL 5.1.7
• PHP 5.1.2

PHP5-dom, PHP5-gd, PHP5-gettext, PHP5-mbstring, PHP5-mhash, PHP5-mysql, PHP5-openssl, PHP5-pcre, PHP5-pgsql, PHP5-session, PHP5-sqlite, PHP5-xml

Some situations I encountered is probably due to the version of PHP and MySQL. So, if you are here with the similar situations, you might be at the right place!

• /usr/local/etc/php.ini
• /usr/local/etc/php.ini-dist
• /usr/local/etc/php.ini-recommended

I installed all my application using FreeBSD Ports. I had php.ini-dist and php.in-recommended in the direcotry shown above. I started with copying php.ini-recommended to php.ini in the same directory. After installing drupal just like the INSTALLATION says, all I get was a blank page.

Looking at http-error.log, I found a whole bunch of errors like this:

PHP Warning: include_once(sites/default/settings.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /path/to/your/drupal/includes/bootstrap.inc on line 636

So, it was some "include path" problem.

In the both default php.ini files ( php.ini-dist and php.ini-recommended ), the line for include_path is commented out, so I enabled this line by deleting ";" at the beginning of the line.

;include_path=".:/php/includes"

to

include_path=".:/php/includes"

but I think you probably just need this

include_path="."

BTW, ":" in the ".:/php/includes" just means separation of the two values.

The way I created MySQL database administer is like the below, which sintax are easier for me to understand than what the instruction says.

mysql

( entering mysql as root )

create user drupal_database_administer;
grant all privileges on drupal_database.* TO 'drupal_database_administer'@'localhost';
set password for 'drupal_database_administer'@'localhost' = old_password('your_password');
flush privileges;

( exit from mysql then reenter mysql with a new database administer )

mysql -u drupal_database_administer -p
create database drupal_database;

( exit from mysql )

mysql -u drupal_database_administer -p drupal_database < database/database.mysql

But, I got an error right here.

I had to edit database/database.mysql, simply replaced TYPE=MyISAM to ENGINE=MyISAM

Then, it was fine. I think this is because of the version of MySQL. I am not sure that many people are using this version of MySQL, so this may be a small problem for now.

I am not sure you have to use old_password('your_password') method. I previousely had a probem with using regular method, since then, I use this method and it works fine this time as well (for me).

Lastly, you have to edit /sites/default/settings.php to the right values.

$db_url = "mysql://drupal_database_administer:password@localhost/drupald_database";
$base_url = "http://website_address";

Then you should be able to access the web. However, I only got {Head} and similar stuff on the start page. This seems to be because the default theme is not working well with PHP5. I was still able to see a link text to create the first user, so I did that. Then, I changed the default theme to friendselectric. Finally, it looked like a normal drupal site!

The biggest issue here is probably "blank page" without configuring include_path="." in php.ini, since this is disabled in default installation of PHP. I can imagine that this would intimidate the beginners in numbers. Also, if you don't have access to edit your own php.ini. You still have to find a way to put a line like ini_set("include_path","."); or some other alternatives. Otherwise, there are relatively small stuff to entrap while installation. I have plan to use drupal to develop some web projects coming in, so I will definitely dig into this nice tool more and more.

Drupal.org

Another unbelievable things happening.. Today, I had the first day as a teacher for a UNIX class at a technology school. How did it happen? I really wanted to ask myself. I've got a degree as a visual artist in California, but now I am going to teach UNIX stuff to those kids? My life has been jumping around one place to another so many times, and it still continues that way. Hum.. I wonder what comes next.

This website "熊本県中小企業団体中央会" just relaunched with a whole new design.

Most times, I get to asked to develop codes, but I was actually asked to design a website this time. I've been wanting to try to draw something looks like the texture of torn paper.

I showed to the client another design which has a nice Web2.0 looks, but they picked this one instead. I suppose many people are bored by the designs with too many straight lines, like me.

Anyway, my wife (with the new iMac!) helped me with the illustrations on the home page. I hope this kind of collaboration will continue in the future!

Quinn's Photo [Zooomr]