install.md: Instructions invalid for Debian

[ghost]

In _docs/getting_started/install.md, the section titled "Ubuntu / Debian" suggests using sudo apt-get -y install nodejs-legacy npm.

On Debian stable, nodejs == nodejs-legacy, which is version 0.10.29. Lounge does not run on node 0.10.29. This does not affect Debian testing, where nodejs-legacy is 4.x (4.6.1 right now) and is thus usable.

The instructions for Debian stable should recommend manually installing node 4.x (or above? Not sure how far up it goes).

[astorije]

Indeed, we dropped support of Node < v4 when releasing The Lounge v2.0.0.
We should probably remove the install command for Node from our docs, and instead link to more official documentation for this. Also, we are really close from having a dedicated Debian package, so there is that.

[AlMcKinlay]

We should probably remove the install command for Node from our docs, and instead link to more official documentation for this.

Agreed, essentially all of the documentation o nthat page is "How to install node", which we should delegate to the official docs for node. They will do a much better job than us.

[astorije]

@maxpoulin64, should our documentation on how to install Node on Debian/Ubuntu recommend "Install Node the way you want + run npm install -g thelounge" or make use of https://github.com/thelounge/deb-lounge ?
I feel like the latter is much nicer, especially since it runs as a daemon as well!

I can update the documentation myself if you're busy, but I could use some help listing the steps to get there :) Thanks!

[maxpoulin64]

@astorije It makes a lot more sense to use the debs yeah. They're essentially "install and play". Just need to build and host said debs, of course. It's useless if we have people manually build the .deb and install it, might as well just use npm in that situation.

I can build them quickly for the latest version of you need, or we can have Travis build them I guess.

[astorije]

This ticket is actually a duplicate of #25 so I'm closing it as dup, but I want to continue the discussion of documenting the debs on the website.

Feel free to add details/convo here or open a new ticket.

Also, addressed this very issue in #49, at least until we document the debs (because right now following the steps on the website just doesn't work, which is bad!).

[astorije]

@maxpoulin64, 100% agree with you.

I'm all for setting up Travis CI to do that for us and not worry about it. Question then would be: where do we host the debs? Is there a typical way/place to do this?
If not, we could always use GitHub's feature to attach binaries to a release (like at the bottom of https://github.com/thelounge/lounge/releases/tag/v2.1.0), does that seem like a reasonable idea?

I'm fairly incompetent when it comes to that for now, so don't be offended at what I write :D Any input is welcome.

[AlMcKinlay]

It's pretty common nowadays to just stick your binaries on github. I think that's fine. And travis is a good place to have them built.

[astorije]

It's pretty common nowadays to just stick your binaries on github. I think that's fine.

Real question is, if we do that, is it still convenient to use things like apt-get install ... (through a custom apt repository I'm guessing) or not? Again, fairly inexperienced with this side of package management on Linux so forgive me if I'm asking dumb questions :)

[maxpoulin64]

Ideally we'd want a custom repo, but that's a bit more of a pain to manage than just GitHub releases. I don't think we can host debian repos, even on GitHub pages, but we'd have to look into that. Using the releases would be a great start at least (not exactly apt-get, but dpkg -i ... is already pretty good, or in many distros just double-click and install).

[astorije]

Sounds good! We can start with dpkg -i ... and see later for repos/apt-get.

What do you think of the following in terms of plan:

• Build .deb files for all 3 releases since v2 (because why not)
• Attach them to GitHub releases in the lounge repo
• Document that in this current repo (what are the steps? Just dpkg -i xxx.deb?)
• Set up Travis CI to do it for us as of next release (unless we release before coming up with this)

The last one is a nice-to-have, but I think having a deb v2.1.0 + correct documentation for it is more important to start with :)
I'm guessing one needs to run it from a Debian distro to produce a proper .deb? Mind sending me the binaries when you have a moment?

I actually managed to always use apt-get for software I use and never run dpkg -i, how would one run an upgrade when we release a new version?

[AlMcKinlay]

Real question is, if we do that, is it still convenient to use things like apt-get install

Oh yeah, I'm not suggesting uploading the binary to releases is instead of having a custom repo or getting it into distributions. It's just the first step.

What do you think of the following in terms of plan:

Happy with that.