Dependency on mysql not recognised

[riban]

Binary package hint: redmine

During installation of Redmine, configuration of mysql database is performed which requires the password for the mysql database administrator. If mysql-server has not been installed, this stage fails. There should be some check that mysql-server is available and if not, a message should inform the user how to reconfigure the application after fixing the issue. Mysql is not a dependency of Redmine because the database backend could be on another host or a different database engine.

[kapouer (kapouer)]

This is more of an admin issue. Configuring dbconfig-common
to connect to a non-existent mysql or pgsql server is bound to fail.
Reconfiguring after having a working sql server somewhere is the obvious action...
Does it really need to be coded somewhere ?

[riban (brian-riban)]

I have installed Redmine on Ubuntu twice in the past 24 hours and hit this problem on both occasions. (I know I am the common element here!) It should be possible to install Redmine and have it work without lots of configuration. The reason I used the Ubuntu installation is because I had had so much _fun_ meeting dependencies and configuring Redmine previously and needed it to just install for the next time a server dies.

Part way through installation you are offered to be clever and configure it yourself, or to take the easy road. I think the easy road should "just work" or at least let you know how to make it work later if it failed. I am an IT professional with decades of experience and formal training so was able to fix the issues, diagnose what went wrong and report the bug. Redmine is fantastic (only hampered by the installation / configuration / programming language -;)) and it should be (relatively) easy for a wider audience to install and use it. Sorry, this sounds like a rant but was intended to get across the issue I see and _help_ solve it.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

Redmine can also work with PostgreSQL and SQLite, so I think having it depend on mysql-server would be wrong.

Maybe a better solution would be to have the redmine-mysql package depend also on redmine, so that installing redmine-mysql could be made to pull everything in in the right order.

What do you think?

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

Found 4 other bugs where the installation failed due to this, marked as such.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.