“Easy” development environment creation

Dev
1

Hello,

I wanted to try and fix a one row of JavaScript code in Discourse but could not dare submit a PR without making sure I did not break anything or making sure it did really fix the problem.

So I found what was said to be the easiest way to start a Discourse dev env up: VAGRANT.md.

In there I read:

Getting Started

  1. Install Git: Git - Downloads (or GitHub for Windows if you want a GUI)
  2. Install VirtualBox: Downloads – Oracle VM VirtualBox
  3. Install Vagrant: http://www.vagrantup.com/ (We require Vagrant 1.7.2 or later)
  4. Open a terminal
  5. Clone the project: git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse.git
  6. Enter the project directory: cd discourse

So I followed steps 123 (I already have git and cloned a fork of discourse on my Windows laptop) and installed Virtualbox for my Windows then Vagrant for my Windows.
Until I realised, well:

  • Are those steps starting from Vagrant installation shouldn’t have been done from inside Virtualbox?
  • My Virtualbox is just empty, what OS should I put here?
  • Why install git before Virtualbox if it should be inside?

I am confused.
I have done three first steps but fourth step tells me to open terminal. In Virtualbox? Which VDI?
I must be even dumber than what was expected making those easy dev env install docs.
Are there some official pre‐installed VDI image? Like this seemingly outdated image?

Should the doc have been interpreted as following?

Getting Started

  1. Install VirtualBox: Downloads – Oracle VM VirtualBox
  2. Download and open this or that VDI file (which contains this or that installed OS with git)
  3. Install Vagrant from inside VirtualBox: http://www.vagrantup.com/ (We require Vagrant 1.7.2 or later)
  4. Open a terminal from inside VirtualBox
  5. Clone your fork of the project: git clone https://github.com/yourname/discourse.git
  6. Enter the project directory: cd discourse

From my point of view (for my low level abilities), some steps were missing. :confused:

I have read both the “Discourse as Your First Rails App” blog post and its comments as well.

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2

Well in fact it is just as said, the commands must be launched not from within Virtualbox but maybe I could have been helped by having a few words more in that step by step.

I was actually trying to locally test a revert of row number 176 in this helpful fix where it seemed that row 176 change was not necessary and I got a regression appear in Opera Presto around that very same moment: now internal links open in new tab.

So I was unlucky trying to instal a local Discourse because

  • my professional PC on Windows 7 can build the image with Vagrant but VirtualBox cannot run VM in 64 bit mode or something like that which requires BIOS access or something.
  • my own PC on Windows XP SP3 cannot run Vagrant (but it can run VirtualBox in 64 bit mode, albeit very slowly but NP).

Maybe I should try and generate image on pro PC and then run it on own PC but it is all scripted and I don’t know how much I can interfere in the middle of the process…

3

You should only need to switch on VT-x/AMD-v from within the bios. Is quite easy to do once you boot into bios

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Thanks @mikechristopher, thanks to your terms I could find what to check in that forum because where I had looked before it said Hyperthreading activated but now that I know it is is weird place like Security / Virtualisation I was able to see that it was indeed deactivate.
Unfortunately I am in read only mode as my company IT is understandably keeping password away from us, users.
I will try to make it switched on…

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