Quickstart creator Michael Cole has moved on to other things and passed the torch to me, Travis Carden. Thanks for the great project, Michael!

I'm currently talking with Mike Stewart, maintainer of the DrupalPro fork of the project, about our futures, since Quickstart has gotten lots of updates to its Drush commands but none to its disk image and DrupalPro has got a shiny new disk image but only conservative updates to its Drush commands. Since I don't have the tools or processes in place to generate a new Quickstart image, Mike is looking into a new release of his image with our Drush commands in it. He hopes to have something in the next couple of weeks (from February 27, 2013). In the meantime, users of Quickstart 1.0 can update Drush to the latest version here.

Speaking longterm, I'm thinking it makes sense to separate concerns a little bit: I'd like to scale Quickstart back to being just the Drush commands and let other projects like DrupalPro focus on the image builds and pull our Drush commands in. That's the more Drupal way, I think, to handle things modularly and let people focus on small problems that they're passionate about. Not only so, but then the Drush commands can be versioned and downloaded like a normal project and used outside a VM, on a full desktop or even a server. Then we can think about doing things like adding support for other HTTP servers and operating systems. What does everyone think?

Update: Since taking a new job I don't work in a virtual machine anymore and thus have no personal need for Quickstart. I am therefore stepping down as maintainer. If you're interested in assuming the position, please contact me.

Comments

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

hi Travis, cc Michael Cole and Mike Stewart

firstly, a BIG THANKS to M Cole, this is a fabulous project and I use it a lot

along with the Aegir BOA scripts its essentially my tool-chain !

lately I've been running a 64 bit self-built VMWare image of Drupalpro on a 64GB vm and I am looking forward to checking a new version out

if Quickstart is going to focus down onto Drush command-set I'd like to see more integration with Aegir, the DevShop project has loads of super useful Drush, GIT, Provision scripts, especially for teams

personally, I want a toolchain something like this outlined in previous posts
http://groups.drupal.org/node/276113

it seems to me there is a lot of diversity now and some convergance could be good

mike stewart’s picture

mike stewart commented

@niccolo -- thanks for the feedback! I've been watching this issue and maybe should mention I watch both this and the Drupalpro issue queue. I'm very interested to hear what direction others would be interested in, and appreciate that Travis posted this.

I agree with the provisioning and team workflow aspects, which is my main use for Drupalpro/quickstart and these drush scripts.

traviscarden’s picture

traviscarden commented

Thanks, @niccolo. Can you tell me what kinds of Drush commands the other projects provide and what kinds of new commands you're interested in?

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

DevShop
http://drupal.org/node/1867040

will have to look into others and think about request

john_b’s picture

john_b commented

This is not a bad idea. The problem is that as an enthusiastic consumer rather than a contributor (so far at least), it is really unclear what the status is.

What is the best option to use now?

Also, it is not at all clear whether DrupalPro (or Kickstart) has any realistic prospect of being actively maintained. The problem is harder to track because of the use of Google groups and git hub as well as drupal.org and groups.drupal.org, but as far as I can see DrupalPro is not hugely active. I hope I am wrong about that, and maybe it only looks inactive because there are no pressing problems to be fixed. However, if I am right, then future of Quickstart as a project would come into question if it is depending on a DrupalPro which might not be updated?

If you, or anyone else, could sketch out the state of play / feelings of the various maintainers involved, that would be useful.

mike stewart’s picture

mike stewart commented

drupalpro is being maintained... (not sure what Kickstart is).

no pressing problems. plus has an "update" script.

HOWEVER, I am really trying to get a final release (and have been working / in communication with Travis to make sure the image has the latest Quickstart updates) in the next week or so.

john_b’s picture

john_b commented

Many thanks.

Kickstarter seems to be or have been an idea for making a commercial or funded version of Quickstart> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/drupal-quickstart/L7vF3V0qMUU

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

personally, I think the new/failed multi VM Quickstart approach is wrong

its over engineered and heads in the wrong direction

too many VMs, too big a gap between existing Quickstart and new failed approach

at a time when Vagrant, Aegir Up, Drupal Up etc ...

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

mike, could you make the full version a 64 bit vm? I have to make a 64gb 64bit custom VMWare vm cause I hit the limits with the 32bit ubuntu vm

also, could you include the Nemo file manager, Nautilus sucks

traviscarden’s picture

traviscarden commented

Thanks for the feedback, all.

I managed to roll an alpha image, which you can now download from the project page. Note that the Drush command syntax has changed a little. See drush --filter=quickstart. Please create new issues for feedback. Let's keep this issue focused on the direction of the Quickstart project in general.

sirtet’s picture

sirtet
Primary language German
Location Switzerland
commented

Travis, great! good news. Just downloaded and gave it a first try.

I agree with #5, it's not easy to see the direction/state of the project.

I was following it a while ago, when the kickstarter-idea surfaced, but it seems gone?
According to #8 the multiple-vm approach failed? #6 indicates otherwise...

As you say, to keep this issue focused on the direction of the Quickstart project in general,
i think it would help to give this issue an updated summary, or even update the project page.

sirtet’s picture

sirtet
Primary language German
Location Switzerland
commented

As for ideas:
When i first saw simplytest.me, i thought, that would be cool to have locally, without the timeout.

I did not think much about what's already in quickstart of that, but i just like the very easy user interface, which is great for beginners.

traviscarden’s picture

traviscarden commented

Re #5: I think that lack of centrality and openness in the development process was perhaps the greatest flaw in the former management of the project and as such the first thing I purposed to change when I took over. We're not using Google Groups or Github anymore. I'll speak with the former maintainer to get them taken down. The nature of the Quickstart and DrupalPro projects and their relationship to each other is what this issue is intended to explore.

Re #8: Yes, the multi-vm approach died the death of over-scoping. The vision was simply out of proportion to the energy of the then maintainer and the commitment of the community to it. I have no intention of pursuing it. Be careful to distinguish that approach, however, from what I have proposed in this issue: the "failed" approach we refer to was that of having three separate versions of Quickstart—dev, test, and prod. What we're inquiring into here is having one project for the VM and another for the Drush commands. End users would only download one project (the VM), which would include the other (the Drush commands). Only contributors would likely care about the distinction. Is that clearer?

Re #12: Unless simplytest.me itself is or gets open sourced such that it could be cloned into Quickstart (or have a scripted installation) I don't see duplicating its exact functionality, but everything it does can be essentially accomplished with Quickstart commands out of the box or with some other combination of solutions like Drush Issue Queue Commands, et al. That could be a good topic for documentation or a tutorial video later on.

So let me bring things back around. What do we think of the idea of scaling Quickstart back to being the Drush commands only and delegating vm building to DrupalPro (and/or others)? And how and to what degree would anyone be interested in contributing to Quickstart and/or DrupalPro in that case?

sirtet’s picture

sirtet
Primary language German
Location Switzerland
commented

thanks for this clarification.
separation of drush commands and VM seem a good idea in my opinion.

regarding simplytest.me:
besides liking the non-coder friendly UX,
i just thought that there might be redundancy of code in the background, where efforts could be joined.
i would not have been surprised, if simplytest.me was based on drush-commands from Quickstart.

at best, if i find time at all, i can test, document and add ideas. no coding.

mike stewart’s picture

mike stewart commented

The nature of the Quickstart and DrupalPro projects and their relationship to each other is what this issue is intended to explore.

I'm all ears and looking for community input. My plan it to continue to support and develop DrupalPro ... which in essence is Quickstart 2 (Ubuntu 12.04 + Unity). I hope to find synergy with Travis + future Quickstart initiatives so as not to waste nor duplicate efforts. I also plan to have a final release of Drupalpro next week. The current beta has proven so stable, and updateable that there have been few reasons to update (other than upstream updates).

Note: The primary reason for the Drupalpro project was that Michael Cole removed my commit privledges to Quickstart shortly after I had an alpha release of Quickstart 2. I didn't want the work to go to waste ... and I know it's used significantly in the Los Angeles / Orange County area as well as regular crowd in our IRC channel #drupalpro.

vacilando’s picture

vacilando commented

One meaningless user view:

Right now I don't know whether to go for DrupalPro or the new Quickstart. Quickstart has a better name and fame but failed before. DrupalPro is not a catchy name and has roots in a conflict.
So for the time being I use the good old Quickstart of Michael Cole!

I just hope you guys Mike and Travis can quickly start working together or the whole community will be split between two half-made projects for years to come.

Go back to work on Quickstart together and I am sure the DrupalPro fraction (not just Orange County but also the rest of the world) will follow happily.

druid-3’s picture

druid-3 commented

I'm thinking that the best name would be "QuickPro" :)

Thanks Michael, Mike and Travis for the project.
Good luck and keep up the good work!

c13l0’s picture

c13l0 commented

I perviously tried drupalpro but my aging machine simply lagged to the point of where it would take 5+ seconds just for terminal to open. With quickstart2, there are no issues and no lag. Thank you very much for this update and truly appreciate all of the effort put in

mike stewart’s picture

mike stewart commented

@C13L0 quickstart2 is essentially drupalpro -- just updated (ubuntu + drush) plus new QS drush modifications

At the moment I'd recommend using the QS version -- but it was built off of a drupalpro image. Ive been threatening for a too long to finally have a new release ... but the fact the current drupalpro image has been so stable and until recently nothing new to update.

if you're using either the new Quickstart or Drupalpro -- please join #drupalpro in IRC for support -- its one of the defaults in xchat.

the_g_bomb’s picture

the_g_bomb commented

Wanted to add a message of support.

I have been a watcher of both projects for a while and have used the setup scripts quite a lot to set up my own desktop, rather than using the VM itself, although I do use the VMs as well, but prefer not to have the default usernames and passwords, so I usually create the VM with heavily personalised commands as well.

I also love the drush commands to easily spin up and manage sites, which is my main draw TBH.

I would love to see the project(s) continue and would be willing to help out where ever possible, time allowing.

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

the_g_bomb@ can you give us a clue or even some code on how you personalize permissions etc ?

I've thought about doing it myself, but have never had the time

the_g_bomb’s picture

the_g_bomb commented

It usually starts with a search or a find and replace on the word quickstart, then rather than doing a find and replace all, I meticulously poured over each instance of the word in the install scripts in the directory setup_scripts and the quickstart.drush.inc file in the drush directory to replace usernames, passwords and home directory paths.

I would look at the command being run in the script and I figure out if the word quickstart is refering to a username or password, such as in the mysql, phpmyadmin installation part, or more often it is a home directory e.g. /home/quickstart/.drush, then replace them with your chosen username or password.

Be aware though that there are still some valid uses of the word quickstart even after personalisation e.g. in the drush stuff the quickstart drush files are in a quickstart directory inside the quickstart users home directory, so my include files end up getting changed from /home/quickstart/quickstart to /home/my_new_user/quickstart for example.

I have created a patch I use for when the code gets an update that changes most of the things for me, but it contains my own username and passwords, so I couldn't just share it without some work, sorry.

Drupalpro did some nice work of pulling most of these things out into a config file, so that may be a nice start for you, to fully personalise it though, I think, you may still need to edit the quickstart.drush.inc file as that wasn't able to be altered in the same way the setup_script files were.

Hope that helps.

mike stewart’s picture

mike stewart commented

glad to hear you were able to make use of the drupalpro install scripts. its why I abstracted the way I did... to make it easier to customize for an environment that wasn't called drupalpro (or quickstart)

kae76’s picture

kae76 commented

The Quickstart 2 download file name does not correspond with what is installed.

FIle name is: Quickstart-2.0-alpha1.ova (taken from: https://drupal.org/project/quickstart)

After importing the file in Virtual Box actually states its: Quickstart 2.0 Beta 2 (32bit)

It's just a little confusing and wonder if someone could update this so I can keep track of the versions I've used/using.

Many thanks for a great project, its made my life a ton more easier. :)

traviscarden’s picture

traviscarden commented

Thanks, all. Here's an update on things: I've taken a new job at Acquia, and I don't know yet how Quickstart is going to factor into my work there. What I do know is that I don't currently have any margin to play with. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback here, but I'm feeling more and more like Quickstart needs to turn into a set of Drush commands only and the desktop image needs to fall to DrupalPro and the like. It will take some work to get there, however, and as I said, I don't have the bandwidth to undertake it myself. If anyone is interested in helping, please let me know. I'll happily provide direction and commit patches. For now, if you just need something that works, I would recommend using DrupalPro.

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

Thanks Travis.

It would be super cool if Acquia actually sponsored Drupalpro or some such.

There is also Devshop how, which is kind of like Pantheon multidev

Personally I am slowly working on integrating

Drupalpro
Quickstart
Devshop
BOA Aegir

into a kind of Drupal tool-chain

good luck with the new gig

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

Thanks Travis.

It would be super cool if Acquia actually sponsored Drupalpro or some such.

There is also Devshop how, which is kind of like Pantheon multidev

Personally I am slowly working on integrating

Drupalpro
Quickstart
Devshop
BOA Aegir

into a kind of Drupal tool-chain

good luck with the new gig

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

Thanks Travis.

It would be super cool if Acquia actually sponsored Drupalpro or some such.

There is also Devshop how, which is kind of like Pantheon multidev

Personally I am slowly working on integrating

Drupalpro
Quickstart
Devshop
BOA Aegir

into a kind of Drupal tool-chain

good luck with the new gig

c13l0’s picture

c13l0 commented

Niccolo, I am very interested in your project. Are you in irc? Mike Stewart is in #drupalpro . There is a huge need for this, especially since Omega 4 has been released and windows users need to use linux or mac to continue using omega theme. Since getting a mac isn't an option for many, drupalpro or similar is the perfect solution. There is also Drupal Easy sponsored by ultimike for new drupalers that drupalpro is perfect for.

Congrats Travis for your job with Acquia !!! Many thanks to all of your hard work with quickstart.

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

I'll write a blog post at www.niccolox.org and try to outline findings and thoughts for integration points

personally, I can never justify the expense of a Mac, I just bought a kickarse server and an excellent screen and run Ubuntu as host and dozens of various VMs on Vmware - I sometimes use Windows 7 (and even less often W8) when I need to test or run Office or whatever

another couple of tools of interest

gitflow
Valkyrie (Aegir-friendly Devshop)

I have posted about it before, but will do a write-up later this week

mike stewart’s picture

mike stewart commented

I'm definitely open to working with others on a more flexible version of drupalpro.

There's a lot going on in this space. I've been investigating, and am fairly close to a build / recipe that is no longer based on bash scripts, but based on veewee + vagrant (chef/puppet) in order to better address individual needs/desires. Basically a set of recipes, and people can easily customize to their needs, as well as use a recipe for VPS hosting on the cloud, such as openstack, openshift, AWS, etc. My desire is to build on and contribute to other projects/recipes, such as kalastack, ariadne, beachbum, proviso -- to name a few

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

righton mike, you're certainly way ahead of me on this

just on vagrant, I don't get it, I want my vm's to persist, I want a UI.. am I missing something with Vagrant ?

I've installed a 64gb 8core vm of drupalpro on VmWare Workstation 9, might move to Xen in 2014

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

and a couple more points about Vagrant

1. its a bugger to install on Ubuntu
2. its now got proprietary addons, so the business model has changed and I am suspect
3. VirtualBox kind of just sucks, its slow and the virtual networking is confusing

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

also, I am really liking gitlab
awesome for git hosting and integration with devshop, aegir, drupalpro

I dont want all my client work hosted on a cloud server

niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

ok, I blogged some thoughts, http://niccolox.org/drupal-ecology

need to link it up

c13l0’s picture

c13l0 commented

Thanks niccolo, great article ++

traviscarden’s picture

traviscarden commented

An update on my maintainership: I've been at the new job for about three months now. I no longer work in a virtual machine anymore (because I don't have to run Windows anymore), so I no longer have any personal need for Quickstart. Since I don't have spare time to devote to something I don't use, I'm stepping down as maintainer and marking the project accordingly. If you're interested in taking over, please contact me. Until someone else steps forward, users may wish to consider using DrupalPro instead. Thanks.

traviscarden’s picture

traviscarden commented
Issue summary: View changes
niccolox’s picture

niccolox commented

Ok. Thanks Travis. Good luck

ijf8090’s picture

ijf8090 commented
Status: Active » Closed (outdated)

Last update to this was 2013. Quickstart was great for it's time but has been replaced by container-based solutions such as Lando and DDEV. Gitpod.io provides a web-based development environment.

Much thanks to all who worked on Quickstart.

If anybody thinks this should be re-opened, please feel free....

Regards
Ian