Live Blogging: Preparing for Drupal Sprint Day - Jan. 25, 2014

Volunteers all over the world are contributing their time to fix bugs and test patches to build a better Drupal 8. For more info see: http://www.seascapewebdesign.com/blog/drupal-8-sprint-weekend-jan-24-25-2014

I’m excited about participating in the Global Drupal Sprint Day tomorrow, Jan. 25, 2014 in Vancouver, Canada. I’ll be blogging about my experience here. In preparation for tomorrow's sprint, I’m following Sprint leader, Joel Pittet’s instructions found here: http://pittet.ca/drupal/sprint/2014-01-24

Joel recommends having Git and Drush installed. I have Git installed on my laptop. I don’t have Drush installed yet but I can do that later.

Let’s start by downloading Drupal 8 from the Git repository found on Drupal.org. I remember when Drupal.org switched from using CVS to Git for their software version control. We had a Drupal developer come out from Vancouver to speak at our Surrey Drupal meetup on Getting Started with Git. It was a record turnout of 25 people. I’ve written some tutorials on the basics of Using Git on my blog if you need help in getting started. http://www.seascapewebdesign.com/category/blog-post-categories/git-version-control

It’s been awhile since I’ve used Git. I’m using my laptop running Windows 8. Ah yes, here is the Git Bash icon. I’m not using the Git GUI. It’s better to use the command line like the pros. FYI, Git Bash is the command line interface for Git.

I open up Git Bash. I change directories to my local development server.
       cd c://xampp/htdocs

Go to this link to see how to download the dev version of Drupal 8:
https://drupal.org/node/3060/git-instructions/8.x

Let’s get started by downloading the latest dev version of Drupal 8 via Git. Here we go!

Setting up repository for the first time. Enter this command:
                git clone –branch 8.x http://git.drupal.org/project/drupal.git
                cd drupal
 
NOTE: Make sure you are connected to the Internet via a hard line. I went to a Drupal Sprint back in March 2013. I was using Wifi to connect to the Internet and tried desparately many times to download the Drupal 8 Git repo but to no avail. I did a Google search and came up with, you’ll never guess. Git doesn’t like Wifi. I’m not kidding. It would not work using Wifi Internet connection. So I plugged in a real live cat5 cable and voila, I was able to download the Git repo. Wahoo!

Weill, I am using a hard Internet connection but it still didn’t work. I got the error message, Remote end hung up unexpectedly. Let’s see what it says under Troubleshooting Git Clone.

Let’s try to download the master without specifying a branch using this command:
        git clone http://git.drupal.org/project/drupal.git

This seems to be working now. The messages I’m getting now are Resolving deltas: 100% done
And Checking out files: 100%, done. That’s what I like to see :-)
 
It worked one time only. Seems a network connection issue is at fault. Too many people trying to download drupal 8 on Sprint Days!

I created a d8dev database with same username and password. I set up a virtual host like this:
<VirtualHost *:80>
                DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/drupal
                ServerName d8dev
</VirtualHost>
 
And added this code to my C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts file:
# XAMPP 1.8.2 Server in C://xampp/
# PHP 5.4
                127.0.0.1              d8dev
                127.0.0.1              d8clean
 
I opened up the browser and typed in http://d8dev/core/install.php

It gave me this message: Your PHP is too old. You need to have PHP 5.3.10 installed.

Oh dear. A Requirements problem. I looked into it some more and asked some questions on IRC. Turns out PHP 5.4 is recommended. Now I need to install XAMPP 1.8.2. So I did that. For some reason phpmyadmin is not working. Maybe it’s a path problem. So I used command line mysql to create 2 databases, d8dev, and d8clean, as per Sprint Leader, Joel Pittet’s super duper instructions.

Then I typed http://d8dev/core/install.php and voila! Drupal 8 is now installing as I write this. The install screen looks really nice and clean with a beautiful blue background. Nice improvements.

Oops, got a max execution timeout error. This happens every time I first install XAMPP. Where is that config fiIe? I need to change the max execution time and max filesize and a few other specific items in the php.ini file.

I open up php.ini file and change to this:
       max_execution_time = 300
      memory_limit = 256M
      post_max_size = 128M
      upload_max_filesize = 128M
 
That did the trick and Drupal 8 is now installed. Wahoo!
 
I downloaded the master so I think I need to make a branch with Git.

Here’s a tutorial on how to do that:
https://github.com/Kunena/Kunena-Forum/wiki/Create-a-new-branch-with-git-and-manage-branches

Let’s leave that for tomorrow.  Happy Drupal Sprint Days!