[AktiviX-discuss] Re: [freedomlab] Help setting up a wiki?

[Martin Klang]

Sara, Simon's suggestion seems a very good solution, not least since 
you get it hosted, too. Also you might eventually want to use some of 
the other features of OpenMute, such as discussion boards etc. Note - 
this is not holding anything against aktivix - just my tuppence!

Now some general notes on wikis....

I've set up a few different wikis, including twiki, oddmuse and our 
hacklab MediaWiki, and have had mixed experiences.

Twiki has recently shown a few horrendous security holes, and it's 
pretty clunky overall.
MediaWiki looks sleek and works well, but requires MySQL and is on the 
whole more complicated to set up, and run, than most. Though 
comparatively well documented, and it gets lots of use.
Oddmuse is quite good once you get it working, but lacking in decent 
setup and configuration docs.

The absolute easiest way to get up and running quickly with a wiki that 
I know of, is to install UseMod [1].
Debian even has a package in unstable, which means that installation 
can be done with 'apt-get install usemod-wiki'
- as I remember it some tweaking of /etc/usemod-wiki/config is needed, 
but that's really straightforward. Hmm, or was that on FreeBSD? 
/etc/local/usemod-wiki/config in such case!

Even if you're not running Debian, installation is dead-easy - just 
download a single perl script into your cgi-bin directory. Edit the 
script itself to set things like site name, logo, css stylesheet, and 
most important, data directory. Or set all variables in a wrapper 
script or config file, if you like things tidy.

That's assuming a plain, open wiki is all you need. If you have 
specific requirements, you should of course compare the featuresets of 
the many wiki implementations that are out there.
I should add that I know nothing of PHP wikis, maybe someone else does?

hth,

/m

[1] UseMod wiki: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl

On 14 Jan 2005, at 15:13, Dan wrote:

> I'd quite like to listen in on how to set a WIKI up!  Which platform 
> do peeps think is best?  Has anyone / can anyone prepare a 
> step-by-step guide for the uninitiated / some basic PHP hacks for 
> those of us who don't know much about it (for those platforms that are 
> PHP!)
>
> Dan
>
> ana wrote:
>
>> Hi sara and all,
>>
>> I think this is the kind of thing that the aktivix server was set up 
>> for. I am forwarding this to that list and you will hopefully get a 
>> reply soon.
>>
>> ana
>>
>> sara b wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I've been asked to set up a website for Laing O'Rourke construction 
>>> workers to keep in touch with whats going on with different 
>>> construction sites around the country, as they fight against a shit 
>>> new contract their management are trying to impose on them.
>>>
>>> I thought a wiki would be a good idea so workers in different parts 
>>> of UK can post stuff on it, even if they're not very computer 
>>> literate.
>>>
>>> How do I set one up, and if I buy a domain name for it can I point 
>>> it at the wiki, the same way you would do with a normal site?
>>>
>>> Can anyone help?
>>> Cheers,
>>> Sara.