head1 NAME

Catalyst::Manual::Installation - Catalyst Installation

=head1 DESCRIPTION

How to install Catalyst.

=head1 INSTALLATION

On one hand, Catalyst gains immediate power and flexibility
through its use of CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network, an enormous global repository containing over 10,000
free modules).  On the other hand, Catalyst's reliance on CPAN
can complicate initial installations, especially in
shared-hosting environments where you, the user, do not have
easy control over what versions other modules are installed.

It is worth stressing that the difficulties found in installing
Catalyst are caused not by anything intrinsic to Catalyst
itself, but rather by the interrelated dependencies of a large
number of required modules.

Fortunately, there are a growing number of methods that can
dramatically ease this undertaking:

=over 4

=item * 

Matt Trout's C<cat-install> script

Available at L<http://www.shadowcatsystems.co.uk/static/cat-install>,
C<cat-install> can be a quick and painless way to get Catalyst up and
running on your system.  Just download the script from the link above
and type C<perl cat-install>. This script automates the process of
installing Catalyst itself and its dependencies, with bits of overriding
so that the process does not require user interaction.

=item * 

Chris Laco's CatInABox

CatInABox is a complete version of Catalyst that is installed locally on
your system, so that you don't need to go through the effort of doing a
full install. Simply download the tarball from
L<http://handelframework.com/downloads/CatInABox.tar.gz> and unpack it
on your machine.  Depending on your OS platform, either run C<start.bat>
or C<start.sh> to set your bin/PERLLIB paths. This tarball contains
everything needed to try out Catalyst including Catalyst itself,
Template Toolkit, several Authentication modules, StackTrace, and a few
other plugins.

A special Win32 version is available upon request that contains many
more plugins and pre-compiled modules, including DBIx::Class, DBI,
SQLite, and Session support. If you are interested in this version,
please send e-mail to C<claco@chrislaco.com>.

=item * 

Pre-Built VMWare Images

Under the VMWare community program, work is ongoing to develop a number
of VMWare images where an entire Catalyst development environment has
already been installed, complete with database engines and a full
complement of Catalyst plugins.

=back

=head2 OTHER METHODS

In addition to the "all-in-one" approaches mentioned above, there are a
variety of other installation techniques:

=over 4

=item * 

CPAN

The traditional way to install Catalyst is directly from CPAN using
C<Task::Catalyst> bundle:

	$ perl -MCPAN -e 'install Task::Catalyst'

Unless you have a particularly complete set of Perl modules already
installed, be prepared for a large number of nested dependencies.

=item * 

Gentoo Linux

For users of Gentoo, see
C<http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Catalyst_Framework> for automated
installations.  In short, simply mount the portage overlay and type
C<emerge catalystframework>.

=item * 

FreeBSD

FreeBSD users can get up and running quickly by typing C<cd
/usr/ports/www/p5-Catalyst && make install>, or C<portinstall
p5-Catalyst> if C<portinstall> is installed on your system.

=item * 

Windows ActivePerl

Windows users can take advantage of the PPM tool that comes with
ActivePerl to jumpstart their Catalyst environment.  Directions are
available at L<http://catalyst.infogami.com/katalytes/cat_on_windows>.

=item *

Subversion Repository

Catalyst uses Subversion for version control. To checkout the latest:

    $ svn co http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/trunk/Catalyst/

=back

B<NOTE:> Although all of the above methods can be used to
install a base Catalyst system, only the VMWare image is
likely to have all of the plugins and modules you need to use
Catalyst properly, and to complete the tutorial.  When you
start the C<script/myapp_server.pl> development server, it
will tell you about any modules that are missing.  To add
them, type something along the lines of the following
(C<Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema> is used here as a
representative example):

    # perl -MCPAN -e 'install Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema'
    ...