Answer for: What applications should be available to auto-install on your site?
#6 Magento
One of the better open source shopping carts I've used.
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One of the better open source shopping carts I've used.
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This is far and above superior to OSCommerce in every way.
I've tried to get this package installed at Modwest for the past week, and have failed to have it perform properly. It would be great if Modwest could work out the install and operation kinks, as it is going to be the open source package of the future--if the developers can get their side of install problems corrected.
I'm not using this, but at a glance I can tell it will not install without a some changes to the extensions and memory limit in /conf/php.ini
Yep. Done all that. I've got it running, but I don't trust its reliability. And it is a dog on the shared server. Most likely needs a Memory Boost, and 1 or more of the Magento community-supplied optimizations to run smoothly and quickly. I resorted to using a precompiled php5 cgi, as the Modwest stock one gave me endless problems.
This would be a great package, but the average person would not be able to get it running properly. Somebody with just enough knowledge to be dangerous (like me) can get it running, but with a store, you want 100% confidence--which I don't have in the package the way I have it installed and configured.
http://www.magentocomm...es/overview
"Troubleshooting, optimization and performance tuning
For increased performance and bottleneck resolution let a Magento expert look under the hood of your Magento implementation and server environment."
^^ Maybe it's slow by design.
this is what i had to do in order to get magento working on modwest shared server:
1. follow the directions here to get magento to run in cgi mode:
http://www.magentocomm...php4-server
I still had to do this even though I had php 5.2 installed by special request.
2. install magento via ssh with the directions here:
http://www.magentocomm...ion_via_ssh
if you are on a modwest shared server you can log into ssh with the following instructions:
http://www.modwest.com/help/kb7-116.html
3. move the unpacked magento folder to wherever your liking.
4. navigate to your magento folder and proceed with the install. ex: http://www.yourdomain.com/magento
if you get an error like "First argument is expected to be a valid callback" follow the fix suggested here:
http://www.magentocomm...15/#t154233
5. if you magento is running in a subfolder open up the htaccess file in the magento install directory and find "RewriteBase" and replace it with somethign like "RewriteBase /magento/" or whever your directory name is.
hope this helps somebody.
Thanks for sharing, darleen.
Also, for those of you who are migrating to a modwest server and running magento, be sure to follow these instructions on how to migrate your db and save a few hours:
http://activecodeline....ive-server/
ok, hate to keep posting magento related stuff here, but if you do install magento on a modwest server, be sure to place the following code in this Modwest FAQ at the very top of header.ptml in both the frontend and admin template: http://www.modwest.com/help/kb7-74.html
For some reason by default on the Modwest servers the browser caches everything (even old versions of people's shopping carts!!!) so it is very important to use this code.
Hi all,
Good comments. This is actually the reason I suggested this application as something Modwest might try supporting or providing auto-install for. I've run Magento smoothly but it required specific server settings. The biggest roadblock I found last time I ran it (about a year ago) was that it required the latest release of PHP. The real trick was finding a Web server that was configured appropriately for the application. After that, smooth sailing.
Magento ran well for me. After about 5 years of running osCommerce, the client (and his customers) were ecstatic to be using the Magento shopping cart.
Hmm, I wonder what the source is of the difference in experiences. eferrini: Are you still running the Magento cart on a Modwest site?
mblaue, I used this method of installing Magento:
www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/227/insta
lling_magento_via_shell_ssh
The only other thing I did was to follow their directions to use their precompiled PHPcgi:
See the Appendix: Precompiled CGI setup on this page:
www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/welcome_to_the_m
agento_user_s_guide/chapter_2/
While I could get the app to run. It was a bit sluggish (on the shared servers). But I had problems with needing to repeatedly repair the db tables. And Firefox 3.5 on the Mac would have problems with the Javascript and Ajax controls in the Admin panel, and not update settings in the browser, though they had been changed on the server.
I had some problems getting some of the URLs to work properly, though I probably could have resolved them if I would have thought that the db corruption issues weren't deal-breakers. Just needed to get the mod_rewrite settings right, most likely.
Thanks for sharing, Roger. This might come in handy. It would be great if someone blazed a trail and Magento became a one-click install.
I evaluated Magento for a few clients about 3 months ago. I agree that it beats OSCommerce in most ways, but it didn't work out for us.
Initially we liked it's very slick interface and it had tons of features.
After some experimentation we found it was an extremely heavy application for memory and database usage. It was fairly slow with a default install on a VPS account.
I also found it's API and database schema to be limiting. We were planning to migrate several hundred products from Squirrelcart and there was no clear path. The techniques that Magento uses to store data made a simple SQL migration very difficult.
There has been talk of Drupal/Magento integration for some time, but as I understand it, the stumbling blocks have been memory usage and API complexity. It would require a very high memory limit to run it alongside another large PHP app like Joomla, Drupal, or Gallery2.
So I think if you were going to use just Magento - straight out of the box, it would work pretty well. But for customizing, or integrating, beware.
Alright, one of our engineers (Thanks, Tom!) installed Magento in the Debian environment on our shared system. Based on his experience, I've created the following list of guidelines for anyone installing Magento from here on out (or until it is auto-installable):
http://modwest.com/help/kb11-388.html
Let me know if anything in these guidelines needs clarification.
Any of Magento fans tried these setup instructions yet?
Hey this is great. I haven't tried it yet but thanks for taking the time to do this.
@eferrini: prescient topic posting, we've seen a groundswell of popularity around the Magento software in our customer base.
Well....thank you, mblaue. Now you've got me curious. What kind of groundswell? Are these current customers? I wonder if simply talking about this in the discussion board generated new traffic, or if current customers really are taking to Magento. Either case would be interesting.