Unit 8 EPrints week 1

Comment on how this installation compared with the Drupal and DSpace installation. Indicate what configuration/branding changes you made and how easy or difficult you think customizing the look and feel of the installation is, compared with Drupal and DSpace.

I found the customization of EPrints to be very arcane. While I tried to read and comprehend the EPrints documentation, the only instructions about branding that I found helpful were the code lines on page 5 of the Unit 8 Tech Assignment that describe how to customize the index.xpage file to reflect some unique text descriptive of my digital collection. Things like replacing the default EPrint logo with a logo emblematic of my digital collection require the admin to have previously set up the necessary linux permissions through the CLI. I just didn't know how to do that , however I hope somebody in the class will share their knowledge soon so I can get to the next level . Until then, I'll have to stop and wait for more infromation. I'll need a lot more help before I can undestand and execute the branding process.

It seems that both Drupal and DSpace allow for a lot of customization without having to go back to the CLI and set up permissions. As long as the user is signed on as the admin the Drupal and DSpace GUI enables one to go about doing a lot of things that in EPrints require many CLI preliminary steps.

Another cumbersome thing about EPrints is that before changes may take effect the software requires the admin to perform additional steps also executed from the CLI like $ bin/generate_static yourarchivename. These so called housekeeping chores complicate EPrints adminstration and the bin/generate command or some variation on it is required after every EPrints reconfiguration or it won't work. On some level I guess this is similar to making changes to a website and then having to refresh the browser to display the changes.

The EPrints install was a difficult process for me, with lots of missteps and returns to prior states of the VM. In fact things got so bad for me, that I had to delete the VM from my physical disk, and then somehow I lost my Ubuntu iso file, which forced me to download a new Ubuntu iso and then install a new VM before proceeding to the install and configure the EPrints repository software. Ugh!

The 23 steps on pages 11, 12, 13 that must be performed in order to properly configure EPrints were problematic for me. I wasn't always clear whether I needed to type yes , y or hit enter. I got it wrong lots of times, but I took the precaution of saving a prior VM state so I was usually able to recover. I also encountered instances where I needed to type su user1 before I could use sudo privileges, that was confusing and I am not entirely clear as to why, and it is something I had not observed using the other repository software products.

In conclusion I found EPrints to be very unforgiving and not at all intuitive. Experimenting with EPrints isn't an option since the EPrints indexer is very finicky and liable to crash the VM if the configuration isn't perfect.