Usually the installation of Drupal modules is pretty straightforward:
- Download module to modules/
- Uncompress
- Enable
- Configure
- Profit
But the Memetracker module is a bit different, requiring a bunch of Python stuff, and ideally, "root" on your server. It's not that hard to set up, but if you're not used to installing stuff outside of the Druapl-verse, these notes might help you.
(These instructions are for Ubuntu Hardy Heron. The steps are likely very similar on other Debian-based distributions, including earlier versions of Ubuntu.
I've also successfully installed Memetracker on Centos 5.x/Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.x. I have a document for that coming soon, though the packages and steps are very similar, and you could extrapolate these notes and apply to other Linux versions.)
Most of you should skip to step 2, as you probably already have Drupal running..
1. Make sure you have all "normal" LAMP and Linux utilities installed for your typical Drupal install.
1a. Install the LAMP stuff, mail server stuff that Drupal requires.
# apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mysql mysql-server php5-gd postfix
(Note: Though Drupal core can run on PHP4, the Memetracker module *requires* PHP5, so that's what we're using here. You don't have to go out of your way to get this on Hardy Heron, but there is a small possibility some of you went out of your way to get PHP4, so I'm steering you towards PHP5 here.)
1b. Though not required to run Drupal, these additional packages make life much easier, and it's just a matter of time before you miss them:
# apt-get install openssh-server wget build-essential groff-base man-db unzip
2. Unlike most Drupal setups, you also need to have some Python resources handy to run Memetracker.
2a. The first bunch of Python tools already have nice Ubuntu packages already made up for you.
# apt-get install python-numpy python-numeric python-dev python
2b. Pyclust doesn't have an Ubuntu package made for it. We need to compile it from source (There will be a python-cluster package in the next Ubuntu version, Intrepid Ibex.)
Get the source:
# wget http://bonsai.ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~mdehoon/software/cluster/cluster-1.41.tar.gz
Uncompress the source:
# tar -xvzf cluster-1.41.tar.gz
Now install it:
# cd cluster-1.41
# python setup.py install
You now have all your Python stuff installed.
Let's verify it works:
# python
>> from Pycluster import *
(You will get your Python prompt back if you have your Python stuff installed correctly.)
That's it. You now have your environment ready for Memetracker. There's lots of other stuff you can do to optimize your system for Memetracker, and I have some additional Memetracker documentation coming up. However I noticed an immediate need for this Python stuff to be written down in a step-by-step manner, as many Drupal folks don't usually have to do so much Python/Linux stuff.
