Having trouble installing Koha? Trouble yourself no more: the Koha Live CD is here! Install Koha easily the same way you install Ubuntu into any PC – Koha installs itself along with it. The installed Koha is fully functional as a production system. Alternatively, you can preview Koha right from the CD. It works from RAM – great for demonstrating Koha to your clients!
Latest Version
Release 5 – blog post
- Koha 3.0.6 Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (x86)
- Switched to Ubuntu Server edition. (Still has GUI.)
- Included Koha wallpaper.
- Included readme file on the desktop.
- Fixed USB auto-mount issue.
Download from SourceForge.
View readme for instructions.
Older releases
Release 4 - blog post
- Koha 3.0.5 Ubuntu 9.10 (x86)
- Koha LiveCD now uses Zebra! No configuration needed.
- Updated Koha to 3.0.5
- Easier-to-read instructions.
Download from SourceForge.
View readme for instructions.
Starting with release 4, no BitTorrent is available. Please download from SourceForge.
Release 3
- Koha 3.0.4 Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop x86
- Koha web installer no longer complains about database privileges.
- There are some known issues. Please check readme.txt before installing!
Download .torrent for Release 3 (12 KB, torrent size 638 MB)
MD5: 7588ca461d9be666a22bbae1dc0ef34b
View readme for release 3.
If you need a BitTorrent client, check out uTorrent (windows), Transmission or Vuze (Linux, Mac).
Also available on SourceForge
Release 2
- Koha 3.0.3 Ubuntu 9.04
- Trimmed certain packages to fit a CD.
Download .torrent for Release 2 (14 KB, torrent size 694 MB)
MD5: c236737b83d838c9fd3bcad6ebb04648
Release 1
- Koha 3.0.3 Ubuntu 9.04
- Compatibility release with full cache intact.
Download .torrent for Release 1 (12 KB, torrent size 1,195 MB)
MD5: 0dee419e4808bdbe1140585499bd6e4b
You do not need Ubuntu ISO. Select Koha Live CD’s ISO instead. (You have to add it as shown in picture #12 on the linked instruction page.) However, it works the same way as an Ubuntu ISO, except that it also installs Koha. There should not be any need for username/password either (until you have finished installing). If you encounter that, you’re in the wrong menu.
Anyway, I would like to persuade you again, that your organization should seriously consider asking for IT help. Even if there is no funding allocated, you should try getting someone for free – maybe friends or neighbors of someone in your organization. This is not a set-and-forget operation. You will need to constantly monitor and troubleshoot your server over the lifetime of its service. You will see a lot of problems like this down the line.
After you manage to finish installing Koha in your virtual machine, the next problem you will need to tackle is making the VM visible via the network to other PCs and that is definitely very, very difficult.
Hi Mizst,
I will try pointing it to the Koha Live CD. But I was sure I tried creating a new virtual machine with the Live CD as the choice, and it gave me some error. May be I should approach it fresh on Monday.
I will let the Director here know your excellent suggestion about getting at least temp IT help. I can see some mystery or other cropping up from time to time and the library catalog put in cold storage until we stumble upon a solution. (Definitely we seem to be stumbling upon them rather than understanding the logic of things.:)
Thanks,
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
Hi Mizst,
Ok, I got as far as the progress screen (which comes after the VM VirtualBox splash screen) showing that Koha [Running]. But it stops at:
Loading /casper/vmlinuz……………
Loading /casper/initrd.gz………..
……..ready.
This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU: pae
Unable to boot – please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU.
Now, googling for pae, ubuntu server, VirtualBox I came across this: http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2007/09/05/making-ubuntu-server-work-in-virtualbox/
But the post is from 2007 and there is maybe direct accommodation for Ubuntu servers in VirtualBox by now?
Or can I try running the Live CD in VMWare Player (that is free?)?
I will also try burning it and directly installing to hard disk from the CD before giving up (on 3.0.6, that is).
Thanks.
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
Hi again Mizst,
Just in case we decide to install Koha Live CD directly on hard disk, I include the processor specs here:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7200 @ 2.53 GHz.
Would this run the Ubuntu 10.04 without the pae error?
Thanks for all the help.
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
For your first question, I think you simply have to upgrade VirtualBox to the latest version. One of the previous comments had the same problem. But I anyway recommend that you install it directly without VirtualBox.
For your second question, any Intel CPU from E2100 upward should not have any problem with PAE, provided that the mainboard did not disable the feature. E7200 should be ok.
Thanks Mizst.
Yes, I had read Ray’s comments having to do with the exact problem with Ubuntu server/pae while installing and your response. Hence the processor info above to make sure we will be good with direct install.
Regarding version of VirtualBox: Have the latest VirtualBox for Windows. (And the “check for updates” option in the VirtualBox menu comes with a message saying that “No link found.” Or something like that.)
When I install directly (which I also think the more stable method of running of Koha), would it automatically allocate/partition the hard drive for itself? I have your “Read me” instructions for running it from CD or through direct install and it does not mention anything about this.
(But I can try Koha Live CD 3.05 install through VirtualBox before discarding this route?)
Thanks immensely,
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
There is an option in VM settings under System->Processor called “Enable PAE/NX”. You need to check this option, but normally it’s checked by default. This has actually been supported for quite a long time (since 1.6, while the latest version is 3.2.6) so I’m quite surprised there are multiple people with this PAE problem.
During the installation process, you will be asked about partitioning. I believe it will be intuitively clear once you get there. It’s identical to the base Ubuntu distribution so I did not have to explain it.
I do not recommend going back to 3.05 if you have the choice. There are quite a few bugs in it which you could see from the comments.
Oh Mizst, success!!:)
Yes, the little check mark to enable pae/nx in the processor tab is all it took!! I thought I would have to reconsider my decision about the choice of ILS for the ABBS. Now the Koha screen is in front of me ready to be set up:).
I think I am ok setting up the Koha Admin part as I have done that kind of thing before and I also practiced using their online demo staff client. I am not saying I will not run into other issues. But thanks for your extreme patience helping newbies with some hardcore IT stuff.
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
[...] it all… Everything is on the live cd to do a full install…Had it up and running in 30 mins.. Koha LiveCD | Mizstik Projects Ta John Reply With Quote [...]
first of all, thank you for all the work you put in this project. it saved me numerous headaches. i have one issue that i wonder if others might face when installing the liveCD. everything installed fine only I am not able to connect to the internet using the z39.50 search. i think it is a permissions issue. usually in the regular koha install you are asked to identify kohauser as the owner of the zebra files. i noticed after installing the liveCD that zebra files are owned by the root file (and this, i think, is why i cannot use it to connect with the z39.50 search). i am still working through the (all of this is quite new to me)
again, i appreciate all your work. it has helped me a lot. keep it up
re: cmathias
Thanks for the report. The root user was used to avoid a couple of issues when building the live CD, which is very selective about which users can be kept intact. However, I also specified root for Zebra and set the automatic indexing job to use root.
I’m not altogether familiar with z39.50 over the internet, but I believe the relevant settings may be located in /etc/koha/koha-conf.xml where there are some commented-out lines regarding listening ports. By default it is configured to listen to localhost only.
hi…
i copy live CD for koha. my pc having windows xp version. but when i start koha live CD with my pc as boot from CD option, it can not go to bootable option. it starts with windows XP version.
so, what can i do for that.
kindly help me
Sorry there’s not enough info to figure out what’s wrong in your case. Try double checking your boot options. As a last resort you can try removing the hard drive to prevent the PC from booting with it.
Hi again Mizst,
I have two questions:
Are there no other framework templates loaded with the Live CD except the Default one? (Since it has been a month that I installed Live CD, I cannot recall if it gave me the choice during installation.)
I am not able to clone the sub-field ‘b’ (the subordinate author sub-field) in the 110 (corporate author)tag. There is a plus sign next to the box for the ‘b’ sub-field, and I am supposed to be able to have as many subordinate authors as I want. But when I click on the plus, nothing happens.
Any ideas why?
Thanks.
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
reva:
#1: It is indeed a choice during the installation. This is in step 3 immediately after selecting to use MARC21, under the heading MARC Framework -> Optional.
#2: This is reportedly a bug in Koha, which is due to be fixed in 3.2.
Thanks for the quick response.
Just for your info: I have been testing the demos at Bywatersolutions (Koha version: 3.01.00.143) and liblime (Koha version: 3.01.00.032, profiled as Koha Express by them). The feature to clone the subordinate author in 110 works fine in both demos! The bug must have been fixed long before 3.2, it looks like.
And the other framework templates: I might have just missed checking them. I remember checking many things. But maybe at the time I made the decision to go with just a Default one.
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
Reva, those versions are custom-built by the respective vendors. In fact, what is commonly referred to as 3.06 is in fact version 3.00.06.010 which is what is on the Live CD, and so far that is the latest stable release from the community. Anything newer is beta.
About the bug, see here (dated Jul 30, 2010):
http://old.nabble.com/Repeatable-MARC-subfields-td29306714.html
Hi Mizst,
I have a strange issue:
The publisher’s name (260 $b) is showing up as a link in the display. I have made sure by going into MARC structure sub-field edit and displaying constraints: the 260 $b URL option is unchecked (meaning, the sub-field will not be a link). Nevertheless it shows up as a link that I can click and find other books by the same publisher.
Any other way I can turn this off?
Thanks,
Reva
Sorry I’m not knowledgeable about this particular issue. Try asking on the mailing list or IRC channel instead as there are people there with extensive Koha experience, including the developers themselves.
http://koha-community.org/support/
Please take care not to ask livecd-specific issues there as they will refer you back here, but you can ask about Koha usage issues there.
Hi again,
Forgot to mention a quirk in my Koha Live CD set up in the VirtualBox.
My clipboard between host and guest is not working in the Koha Live CD though the bi-directional clipboard is checked.
But I have a Windows 7 guest in the same VirtualBox and the clipboard integration works fine.
This is not that important to us, as we will be installing the CD on the hard disk; but thought I would ask.
Thanks again,
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
About the bi-directional clipboard, it appears to work fine on my system. (VirtualBox 3.2.8.64453 on Koha Live CD R5)
This is most often caused by updating one of the components but not the others. (host virtualbox version, guest kernel version, or the installed guest additions version) Update virtualbox and kernel to the latest version, then install the newest guest additions again on the guest system.
Thanks Mizst.
Ok, I will do a clean install of our VirtualBox to 3..2.8 (We have the 3.2.6). That may solve the clip-board issue.
I have already tried the Koha IRC channel about the 260 $b link issue. They are on 3.2 and they do not know the specifics on 3.00.06 (anymore)! They have been helpful on other things though:).
I was just asking in case you know anything about it.
As it is not a major issue, I guess we will live with that.
Thank you for your answers.
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
Hi Mizst,
I did upgrade VirtualBox to the latest Windows version (3.2.8); but the bi-directional clipboard and the ubuntu window re-size are still not working. Any other ideas (such as checking a box or un-checking another) that might solve the issues? (I have to admit that I did not do a clean install though.)
Other than that, all functions of Koha Live CD work fine inside the VirtualBox.
Thanks,
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
You did not mention upgrading the guest kernel and reinstalling the guest additions. Have you done that? Those are the important ones.
If you did that and it’s still not functional then I’m out of ideas, because that’s what always worked for me.
Hi Mizst,
I thought may be updating VirtualBox to the new version would take care of that as well. (Though I have to say I do not know how I am supposed to do the guest addition install-yet.) I will look & find instructions for it from Google. If I am not having luck there, I might ask for some detailed instructions from you. I hope that is ok.
Thanks,
Reva
Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards
I’ll post it anyway. Many people seem to have problems related to this.
Updating kernel:
> sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Note that usually when you upgrade the kernel, the Guest Additions are lost, but it also clears up any problem you currently have.
Reinstalling Guest Additions:
- While the VM is running, select from the menu above the VM: “Devices -> Install Guest Additions”
- In the VM, open the terminal. (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal)
- Enter these commands:
> sudo -i
> mount /dev/cdrom /cdrom
> cd /cdrom
> ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
- Wait for it to finish then reboot.
If after these steps, you still have missing functionalities, it’s time to head to either VirtualBox or Ubuntu support forums. Be prepared to describe your hardware and software setup (on the host) in detail if you go.