ZoneMinder Forums

I am very new to linux and have been using some cctv software on Windows and have decided to move to linux. I have Mandrake 10. What I need to know is what do I have to do, to set it all up. THe readme file says I need MySQL and such. Can anyone give me a step by step guide to getting up and running. This software looks fantastic and I really want to get it working. I just need some help to start with. I hope someone can help.

Zoneminder is fantastic - I migrated from a Windoze solution about 12 months ago, and have never looked back.

Unfortunately, Linux doesn't really lend itself to newbies, and I wouldn't recommend someone without a UNIX background embarking on this exercise - it will be full of frustration. I have 10 or so years experience as a UNIX Sys Admin, and still find Linux full of frustration from time to time.

That being said, below is a list of all the things you will need to consider when installing ZM, and roughly the order you will need to complete them:

1. install a web server - apache is probably included with your Linux distro

2. Install php. If installing from RPM's included with the distro you'll probably need php, php-devel and php-mysql

3. mysql is next. Download the RPMs for version 3 and install mysql-devel, mysql-client, mysql-server

4. Install the following PERL modules:
DBI, DBD::mysql, Compress::zlib, Archive::Zip, IO::Stringy , Mail::Field, Mail::Header, Mail::Internet, Unicode::Map, Unicode::String, MIME::Tools, IO::Wrap, Date::Manip

5. Zoneminder... now follow the instructions from the README


The above probably isn't very helpful if you're new to Linux. Perservere, the end result is worth it.

Post back if you need further details

Thank you for your reply. Do you think I am doing the right thing going for Mandrake, or would you recomend Redhat?. Also installing Php and Apache are not a problem for me, but the MySQL is all new to me.

you can install mysql simply from the mandrake installation procedure, you will need to install mysql-devel to compile zoneminder.

on mandrake you can use a very simple and usefull tool to install software: urpmi

just go in console :
# urpmi mysql-devel
and urpmi will do all is needed, inform you of dependancies, etc...

...but...
why don't you start with the livecd?
see http://www.zoneminder.com/downloads.html, section "Other Downloads"
In my opinion it is the best way to get started with zoneminder for a linux beginner...

bye.

Go with what you're comfortable with.

My Linux experience is purely Red Hat, Red Hat is end of life and I'll be forced to upgrade to Fedora eventually so here comes some more pain - I'll delay this as long as I can. Perhaps this is a good time for me to look at other Linux distros - I'll be interested in your feedback on Mandrake.

Mandrake should be fine - many others on the forums have already installed ZM & Mandrake successfully. Another option for you is Ross Melin's LiveCD distro of Mandrake/ZM - it's available on the downloads page.

If you get past Apache/PHP, then installing the PERL modules should be fairly easy. MySQL is also easy - there are RPM's available from the Mysql web site. My advice on MySQL is install v 3.23 not 4.x. I recently tried reinstalling my machine from scratch for various reasons, at the same time I installed MySQL v4 - v4 has a newer version of libmysqlclient.so which I couldn't resolve, so I went back to v 3.23.

I have some install notes intended purely for my own purposes, if you like I'll clean them up and forward them to you.

If your new, do a Ross Melin's LiveCD. Boot from the cd and type "livecd noscsi" (without the quotes). You will be up and running in no time.

When I boot from that CD, my monitor says it dont support the video mode. Any Ideas?

When I boot from that CD, my monitor says it dont support the video mode. Any Ideas?

Please try using "livecd xres 800x600" at the boot prompt. Note that the README.BOOTCODES posted on this site says "xres=800...' but please try it with a space instead of "=", and let us know if this helps.

Thanks
Ross

Thank You for your reply, I might be being stupid here, but where do I type that, as I cant see anything on the screen as it boots, I can see the CD loading for a while then all goes quiet.

Thank You for your reply, I might be being stupid here, but where do I type that, as I cant see anything on the screen as it boots, I can see the CD loading for a while then all goes quiet.

Hello Ross,

Are there any plans to update your Zoneminder LiveCD mandriva version?.

It's is old and cannot read my hard drive. It seems Mandriva 2006 doesn't have any drivers for my HD controller.

Mandriva 2009.1 works pretty well but I haven't been able to install it.

Regards
Zeke

This is a very old thread but the latest version of a ZM live CD coupled with Mandriva is 1.23.3 and is available at Linuxtracker.org under the Zoneminder category. I believe Ross used Mandriva 2007. Anyway there are 9 active seeds with 337 downloads completed. His current masterpiece is based on Arch; others are based on Ubuntu, Puppy, PCLinuxOS, and several others... many to try (they all work, configuration can be slightly different), search'em up.