[Erp5-users] Tripping on first steps in ERP5

[jp at nexedi.com]

Hi,

I happy that you ask those questions. Here are some more details after Luke's reply.

> These instructions refer to https://www.tiolive.com/grid/help. At
> first, I only installed the tiolive-application (step 1), but didn't
> "register" and "deliver" (whatever that may be) (steps 2 and 3) on
> tiolive.com, because I want my ERP5 instance to run locally.

With TioLive Grid, you can install and configure as many ERP5 instances as you wish on your laptop or server. Some instances can be used for productions, others for development or training. For now, you have to register to http://grid.tiolive.com  . This gives you access to a web interface to create instances. Although the web interface is not running on your machine, instances will be created on your local machine on will run on your local machine.

The concept of "TioLive Grid" is a bit new. It is a kind of SETI at Home but for Cloud Computing. There is a server (not running on your machine) which gives instructions to various machines all over the world (yours, others, etc.) to create ERP5 instances. So, you can even register your friend's machine and create ERP5 instances remotely on his machine. If you use IPv6 or VPN, you can remotely assist him throug the Web.

"TioLive Grid" has been recently extended so that it works not only for ERP5 but for about any software. This extended version of "TioLive Grid" is called "SlapOS". It is now an OW2 project (OW2 is an international open source foundation with roots in many countries). The source code of SlapOS is open source and public, but still very new.

The next release of ERP5 (close to be ready) will leverage SlapOS technologies to make installation of ERP5 instances even simpler than TioLive Grid and without requiring to register anywhere. SlapOS will also be used to produce official ERP5 packages (RPM, DEB) for all GNU/Linux distributions from a single specification, in a way similar to the way packages for TioLive Grid were made.

> But then I couldn't find a way to start ERP5 (nor Zope).  Remember, I
> am new at this.  Then, as a last resort, I did "register" and
> "deliver".  And now, to my surprise, my browser is showing
> http://127.0.0.1:57005/erp5/.  So this is my local installation after
> all?

Yes. Exactly. Just like SETI at Home.

> I guess I need to find out what tiolive really is about.  In the last

TioLive has been the first tentative of Nexedi to move ERP5 to the Cloud in  massive way. The concept is simple: provide everything, for free, automatically configured with more freedom than proprietary cloud providers in the field of CRM for example. Thanks to TioLive, it was possible to educate many students to ERP5 through the "One Student One ERP" programme (www.osoe-project.org).

TioLive project will soon evolve into a new project based on SlapOS. Our hope is that SlapOS will be adopted outside Nexedi and help many companies create Cloud computing, SaaS or PaaS services based on open source software (not only ERP5).

> couple of weeks when trying to build and install ERP5 using the
> instructions on raskon.org, tiolive never came into play.

The TioLive Grid way departs from traditional approaches in GNU/Linux distributions and thus can feel uncomfortable at first. SlapOS, the next evolution of TioLive, will go even further in that direction. At the same time, SlapOS will support not only GNU/Linux but also BSDs and OS X. It will be closer to the way "language based" distributions are made (eggs for python, gems for ruby, etc.) and will support more platforms.

In order to make traditional GNU/LInux users feel comfortable when they try ERP5 at first, DEB/RPM packages will be provided for GNU/Linux distributions (as in TioLive Grid or in erp5.com)  This work in progress is done by ERP5 BR community. ERP5 BR already ported to ERP5 SVN many of TioLive technologies. 
 
So, our hope, is that you get very shortly the same experience as with TioLive, using traditional RPM/DEB packages, without having to register to anything. 

> But what does the line "The second option is to control everything
> manually, so you don't depend on TioLive Grid. Here are the
> instructions to be capable of delivering new instances manually." on
> http://www.erp5.com/download/linux mean?  What are those instructions?

Production grade ERP5 environments (ie. those used by banks, aerospace for example) often need
- a specific revision of ERP5 products
- a specific revision of ERP5 business templates
- custom products and business templates
- patched libraries  (to compensate for the defficiencies if not severe bugs of so-called "certified" commercial Linux distributions imposed by Client corporate rules and by the lack of good open source drivers for Storage Area Networks)
- complex setup of ZEO cluster, caching server, document conversion server

Such complex setup can be described quite easily by using SlapOS and a custom buildout profile.

You can have a look here: http://www.erp5.com/P-ERP5-Install.With.SlapOS 

WARNING: this is still in early stage and evolving quickly. 

Regards,

JPS.

PS. SlapOS documentation is still close to non existent (sorry), but if you need to use it urgently for your project, please feel free to ask help. Else, please wait a few weeks.