[eevee]

Yes, my OS is slightly "weird" for reasons I did not choose. Funny story: while I was trying to figure out what the hell RVM was doing, I mostly ran across people running OS X who had the same setup: 32-bit OS on a 64-bit chip. (And for what it's worth, Python native extensions build for the architecture of the Python executable — you know, the thing that has to load them — rather than the architecture of the machine.)

I never complained that it didn't work with an old database. Ubuntu's versioning was just a fun surprise. I don't see why it wouldn't work with Postgres 9.1; I just figured I'd do the upgrade while I already had my foot in the door.

Maybe if installing Rails apps is still a huge headache after the fourth or fifth time I've done it, something is wrong with Rails. Maybe.

I have a fairly mundane server running the latest Ubuntu LTS with all stock vendor packages. If your app is such brittle crap that this is the "server from hell", well, it's no wonder everyone is using Docker.

[codinghorror]

I'm sorry it was difficult to get Discourse up and running!

If it helps, I'd be glad to throw in a free Digital Ocean $20/month droplet -- I can set it up following our guide at http://blog.discourse.org/2014/04/install-discourse-in-under... and then hand it over to you for everything else. We also have a special Mandrill reseller code so we can give you a Mandrill account with 50k emails/month as part of the package. Just email us at [e-mail] and I'll make it happen.

(Obviously I am a fan, because PHP fractals, man.)

Yes, this will require Docker, which means a 64-bit OS and a modern Linux kernel. We initially tried supporting arbitrary Discourse installs but it quickly became a support nightmare for our small 7 person team. We adopted Docker because we saw it as the only way forward to have sane support both internally (for hosting) and externally. We are all-in on Docker, for what it's worth.

I'd argue Rails has historically had very little incentive to support super easy server installs; how many large open source Rails projects can you even name? Certainly 37signals nee Basecamp isn't too concerned about how hard it is to install their webapps on a server...

Long term, the only real solution is VPS and Docker. I think that has a lot of other benefits for the whole hosting ecosystem, too -- it opens the door to not just Rails deployments but all kinds of alternatives.

[tgaqw]

Installation of discourse isn't that hard. But it's overshadowed by your behavior banning all TDWTF users from your support forum, hiding bug threads, etc.

[briandear]

Just because it doesn't work the way you want it to work doesn't mean it doesn't work. If it literally took 4 days to install the forum software in question, wouldn't it be fair to say that your situation is clearly an outlier? Is the 30 minute "simple" installation claim really just an 'ol bait and switch? Is it really taking everyone 4 days?

I'm sorry about your frustration -- I've been there many times, but taking your hellish experience and parlaying that into "web deployments suck these days because my development environment didn't meet the system requirements and therefore their methods suck" is a bit nonsensical.

I would direct you to the system requirements for the installation in question:

Hardware Requirements

Dual core CPU recommended 1 GB RAM minimum (with swap) 64 bit Linux compatible with Docker Software Requirements

Postgres 9.3+ Redis 2.6+ Ruby 2.0+ (we recommend 2.0.0-p353 or higher)

I would say that 32bit != 64 bit. Blaming the system seems like blaming a toaster that won't make tea. We could certainly hack the toaster into making tea, but your inability to quickly make tea with a toaster is not the fault of the toaster, toast or people that make toasters. Dismissing toast as a silly breakfast food and lamenting why more tea isn't made is pretty much the point of your rant.

You are certainly welcome to install the forum or do whatever it is you want, it is Open Source. However, it's rather uncouth to blame a process for which the problem was your situation. Rather than ranting about how badly Docker sucks, perhaps you could contribute back to the forum software in question and create your own Awesome Deployment System. Nothing is stopping you.

[eevee]

You lost me right around the point where you compared x86 vs x86_64 to a toaster and a teapot.

Nothing about Ruby forum software necessitates a 64-bit kernel. (Which I have, incidentally.) According to Docker, nothing about Docker necessitates a 64-bit kernel either! It's an entirely arbitrary requirement, inherited by the forum software for support reasons rather than technical reasons, and for some reason you are blaming me for not meeting it.

I certainly believe that people manage the 30 minute installation. I would've been much happier if I managed it as well.

And Web deployments must suck, or we wouldn't need Docker. Right? I mean, the whole appeal is that we can take all this arduous ad-hoc crap and just shove it in a box. Unfortunately, it's still arduous ad-hoc crap; we just don't have to look at it as often now.

[justincormack]

Docker largely doesnt support 64 bit as the docker hub doesnt yet, and even if it did there are no prebuilt images for 32 bit, so you would not be able to install any software. This is unlikely to change as no one is going to build 32 bit images for all software given that x86 32 bit is extremely rare (guessing under 1% of installs perhaps less)

[justincormack]

32 bit x86 setups are very rare now under Linux, and you are really on your own - people no longer test with them and some software no longer supports 32 bit (eg Docker; I gather it will go multi architecture soon but I doubt much stuff will be built or tested on 32 bit x86 anyway). As your hardware can run 64 bit you have no reason to run 32 bit.

[eevee]

I hope you can imagine why I might not want to reinstall the OS and have to redeploy half a dozen other things, just so this particular one gets easier.

[justincormack]

Because you are managing your servers as pets not cattle? Because you did the installs manually and can't replicate them? Thats what you need to fix, with automated deployments that is a non issue.

[blakeyrat]

So why wasn't that at least documented?

[pfg]

  Hardware Requirements
  [...]
   - 64 bit Linux compatible with Docker [1]

[1]: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INST...

[johnbellone]

PEBKAC.