Installing Knowledge Tree

Knowledge Tree is a document management system.
A document management systems is a computer system used to track and store electronic documents and or scanned copies of paper documents.
Document management systems are becoming increasingly important.
The theoretical paperless office would depend on a document management system.

Yesterday, I reviewed Knowledge Tree.
Jam Warehouse developed Knowledge Tree and maintains the Knowledge Tree web page.
From this web page, I downloaded the Knowledge Tree source code and documentation.

There are at least four Knowledge Tree editions:

1. Knowledge Tree SMB
2. Knowledge Tree Enterprise Edition
   
3. Knowledge Tree Live
4. Knowledge Tree Open Source Edition

Jam Warehouse prepared a matrix that is useful for comparing the various editions.
I chose to investigate the Knowledge Tree Open Source Edition primarily because it is inexpensive (free). I did not look at the other editions.
However there is a limited free trial offer for Knowledge Tree Enterprise Edition and Knowledge Tree Live.
Curious readers are encouraged to report back the results of their reviews of the other editions.

To download this software, I followed the appropriate links to http://www.knowledgetree.com/node/38.
I filled in a form with my name and email address.
Jam Warehouse sent me an email with a link to an appropriate download site.
I downloaded version 3.4.4.
Since Knowledge Tree Open Source Edition is released under GNU GPL Version 3, if there is a problem with the download site, I am legally able to distribute my copy.

There were five choices on the Download page:

1. Knowledge Tree Open Source Stack Installer
2. Knowledge Tree Open Source Source Only
3. Knowledge Tree Appliance
4. Knowledge Tree Open Source Development Release
5. Knowledge Tree Documentation

I downloaded all of the documentation.

At the time, it seemed clear that I wanted to download Knowledge Tree Open Source Source Only.
However, this was a compressed file (.tgz) that was unusable.
However, I found in Knowledge Tree Open Source Development Release a useable zip file.

I installed the software on a computer running Red Hat Linux Fedora Core 7.
The computer had the following services:

1. Apache/2.2.6
2. MySQL Server Version 5.0.45
3. PHP version 4.4.7

The computer has:

1. 343.8 Mb of RAM memory
   
2. a Pentium III Processor
3. approximately 27 Gigabytes of hard disk memory

I unzipped the files and copied them to /var/www/html.
I recursively changed the ownership of the files to the web user. (chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html).

Then it was necessary to execute some sql scripts supplied in the distribution.
These sql scripts established users, tables, and input some preliminary data.
Personally, I felt it necessary to read the scripts before I would execute them.
I feel that there must be a better way to setup the database.

After that the software was installed.
Perhaps in a future blog, I will review Knowledge Tree operation.