Installing Pinax on Windows

Question

Can I install Pinax on Windows Environment? Is there a easy way? Which environment do you recommend?

Answer 1

I have pinax 0.7rc1 installed and working on windows 7, with no problems.

Check out this video for a great example on how to do this. He uses pinax 0.7beta3 on windows XP.

http://www.vimeo.com/6098872

Here are the steps I followed.

1. download and install python
2. download and install python image library
3. download pinax at http://pinaxproject.com
4. extract the download to some working directory <pinax-directory> (maybe c:\pinax ?)
5. make sure you have python in your path (c:\pythonXX)
6. make sure you have the python scripts folder in your path (c:\pythonXX\scripts)
7. open a command prompt
8. cd to <pinax-directory>\scripts folder
9. run python pinax-boot.py <pinax-env> (I used "../pinax-env")
10. wait for pinax-boot process to finish

-- technically pinax is installed and ready to use, but the next steps will get you up and running with pinax social app (any other app will also work fine)

11. cd to your <pinax-env>\scripts directory
12. execute the activate.bat script
13. execute python clone_project social <pinax-env>\social
14. cd to <pinax-env>\social
15. execute python manage.py syncdb

16. execute python manage.py runserver

17. open your browser to the server and you should see your new pinax site

Voila!! Pinax on Windows.

Answer 2

Provided you have Python and Django installed, Pinax should install fine. According to the documentation there is one step that you have to do specifically on Windows however (Under the "Note To Windows Users" heading):

http://pinaxproject.com/docs/0.5.1/install.html

Answer 3

I spent a while trying to get the .7 beta working in Windows and ran into a lot of trouble. However, it looks like the 3rd beta release of .7 (the latest beta release) focuses on Windows support. So try that, instead of the 'stable' version - it's close to being released as stable anyway, and is recommended now for use.

In the end though, I switched to Ubuntu and haven't been happier. Python development is much nicer in Linux. It's easier to install many Python packages, I run into fewer configuration issues, and there's better support and documentation available.