[commits] [Wiki] created: Distributions

[Gunnar Wrobel]

wrobel  Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:15:52 +0000

Created page: http://wiki.horde.org/Distributions

+ Introduction

With the release of Horde 4 the complete framework has been released  
as single components. [http://pear.horde.org The Horde PEAR server]  
offers about a hundred distinct packages by now. Splitting the  
software in that many components has several benefits. On the one hand  
it restricts the developers to the boundaries provided by the  
interfaces offered by the modules. This has a direct effect on code  
quality. And on the other hand it allows adapting a Horde installation  
to diverse environments in a very flexible manner.

You may be used to installing a web application by extracting a single  
tar archive to the document root of your web server. Installing dozens  
of modules this way would be something that cannot be done manually  
anymore. A package manager is required. In the PHP world the dominant  
solution is the PEAR system. While it may not be that widely used and  
also have some issues it is being present by default on each PHP  
installation. If your system supports PHP it is unlikely that you do  
not have PEAR.

Thus the Horde developers decided to support the PEAR system for  
installing Horde 4 - at least as long as nothing better comes along.  
In addition PEAR is the only system supported by the developers for  
installing and updating Horde 4. Providing alternatives would simply  
consume too much time which is better spent developing the source code.

But of course the Horde developers hope for third parties to repackage  
the original distribution of PEAR packages. This has a long tradition:  
Horde 3 has been available as distribution specific packages on nearly  
all major Linux distributions and it has been repackaged for cPanel  
and Plesk. The same is happening for Horde 4. You rather want tar  
archives or would prefer a phar package? Go for it. We will list it  
here.

+ Horde 4

Horde 4 has not yet been picked up by that many distributions. A few  
offer it already but we expect the list to grow over time.

*  
[http://software.opensuse.org/search?q=horde&baseproject=openSUSE%3A12.1&lang=de&exclude_debug=true  
OpenSUSE]
* [http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/www/horde4-base/ FreeBSD]
* [http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/php-horde-activesync Debian] (in  
progress)

+ Horde 3

Horde 3 has been packaged for pretty much all major distributions. It  
should be no problem to find the corresponding packages.

+ Web hosting management tools

Both [http://www.cpanel.net/ cPanel] and  
[http://www.parallels.com/de/products/plesk/ Plesk] integrate Horde 3  
in the set of web applications that you can install via either of the  
tools. Both seem to be working on integrating Horde 4. At least for  
cPanel there is a  
[http://forums.cpanel.net/f145/horde-groupware-webmail-edition-4-0-case-50766-a-216042.html corresponding  
thread]

Thus you can use these web application management tools to get a Horde  
installation with a minimum of fuss. Usually you will loose some of  
the flexibility you gain with a PEAR or distribution based  
installation but on the other hand this may reduce potential sources  
for error.