Installing a test version of Drupal Commons

Many people do not have access to a computer with the minimum system requirements to try out Drupal Commons. Normally, installing Drupal Commons involves making sure you have a web server (Apache, ..), PHP, MySQL, and many other items of software pre-installed. For many users, this setup is too onerous, and makes it too difficult to test whether Drupal Commons can meet their needs.

For those users, there is a convenient way to install a test instance on their own computer by using Acquia's stack installer.  This page describes the process for Windows and OS X users. (Ubuntu/Debian users can use the .deb package.)

The steps you will follow include:

1. Download and install the Acquia Drupal Stack Installer
2. Download and unpack Drupal Commons
3. Create a Drupal Commons website

1. Download and install the DAMP stack

1. Visit the Acquia Downloads web page, and download the "Stack installer for.." either Windows or OS X for your computer.
2. Follow the instructions for installing the Acquia Drupal Stack Installer Control Panel, and allow it to create your first Drupal site. Note that this does NOT install a Drupal Commons site; we will add Commons in a later step.
3. At the end of the installation, preserve the checkmark to allow the Acquia Drupal Control Panel to start, click Finish, and wait for the Acquia Drupal Control Panel to start.
4. (Special note for Windows, those running on virtual machines, or computers that may be relatively slow):  Drupal Commons is a big-ish application for a PHP application, and may require more than the default memory allocated for PHP to execute. Also, if you're running in a VM or an environment where speed may be an issue, the installation may time out before the Drupal installer finishes.  For these two reasons, Windows users may need to edit their php.ini file (located at (DAMP-install-dir)/php/bin/php.ini) to include:
   • php_value max_execution_time 3000 (This is set to 30 if you're using the DAMP installer)
   • php_value memory_limit 128M  (This field should already be set to this value if you're using the DAMP installer)

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2. Download and unpack Drupal Commons

1. Visit the Drupal Commons page on acquia.com, and click the "Download the code" button.
2. After downloading Commons, expand the download into a complete folder (/directory) hierarchy by unpacking it from the distributed .tar.gz format. (Winidows users can use applications such as WinZip to do this; Macintosh users can simply double-click the downloaded file in the Finder in order to invoke the OS X "Archive utility" application.) Be sure to note the location where the final top-level folder is located; it will be named drupal_commons_xx where xx is the release number of the downloaded distribution.
3. If desired, move this (top-level) folder to a location where you want the final site to live on your hard disc.

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3. Create a Commons site

1. Launch the Acquia Drupal Control Panel from wherever you installed it.
2. After the Control Panel finishes "Starting site", click the Settings button.  A dialog like this will appear:
   
3. Click the Sites tab on the right; the dialog should appear like this:
   
4. Click the Import button; this should cause a dialog window to appear similar to the following:
   
5. Complete the dialog as follows:
   1. Site path: Click the "Browse" button, browse to the location where you unpacked Drupal Commons, and select the drupal_commons_xx folder, and click Choose to use that folder.
   2. (Leave "Subsite" alone.)
   3. Database: Select "Create a new database", and give the database any valid name you wish. Database names may contain many types of characters / numbers / symbols; we recommend you limit your name to upper and lower case letters, and the numbers 0-9, with no symbols or punctuation.
   4. Domain:
      1. Server: Leave this as-is; it should contain "localhost" if you have not modified anything since the installation.
      2. Subdomain: Enter the subdomain name you wish to use for your commons site, e.g. "commons" or "mysocialsite", etc. The name must not include any space characters.  This name will be prepended to create the URL for your host on your computer, e.g. "http://commons.localhost.com:8082"
      3. URL path: leave blank
   5. Click Import. The Acquia Drupal Control Panel will add your Commons directory to your list of available sites on the Control Panel.
6. When the Control Panel finishes, it will bring up your browser and display the page to run the Install Profile for your new Commons site. It appears as shown in the following image. BE SURE to select the "Drupal Commons" radio button, then click Save and Continue.
   
   Running the Install Profile will take about a minute.
7. When the Install Profile finishes running, Drupal will display a page with a form requesting more information about how you wish to configure your site, as follows. Complete your installation by filling out the fields in this form as you wish.
   

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You're finished. If all has gone well, you be able to click through to the default homepage of your new site: