MikesDesk

The month of June is my first anniversary of productively using Ubuntu Linux. I owe it to a patron of Ubuntu Linux, William Kinghorn. I had ordered the Ubuntu LiveCD and installed the operating system. However my enthusiasm waned when on my own to dissect and make use of Ubuntu Linux.
I later meet William at a LUG meeting and was invited to his free weekly Ubuntu workshop. He showed me the install of Ubuntu desktop and server. I witnessed my web page on a LAMP server over the network which started my interest in the web. William created a simple math equation using OpenOffice.org which I latter used successfully in a finance case presentation. We enjoyed coffee breaks with discussions on free software and the freedom it represents.
William, guided me through the quality of Ubuntu Linux operating system. This article is a testament to the incredible person William and the quality he brings to the Ubuntu Linux community. The weekly workshop that William held is a perfect template for people to spread the interest of Ubuntu Linux and introduce new people to Ubuntu Linux.

Cubit Accounting software package is developed and updated by a South African company for local businesses. As stated on its website, cubit is a secure network accouning package that works on linux & windows and with no-per user licensing. Initially I did have problems when installing the software onto my server. This reference guide is to install cubit accounting onto a server using Ubuntu 6.10 operating system.

Perform a clean installation of Ubuntu 6.10 server onto your computer without including the LAMP server and log in using your username and password.

Uncomment the universe repository under the /etc/apt/sources.list file as seen:

$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the ‘universe’
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy universe main restricted
# deb-src http://za.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy universe

Update the repositories using apt-get:

$ sudo apt-get update

Install gcc, a GNU C compiler. This should be found on the Ubuntu 6.10 server CD:

$ sudo apt-get install gcc

Install dialog, which allows dialog boxes in scripts and on commandlines:

$ sudo apt-get install dialog

Install libreadline5-dev, allows consistency in the user interface of command lines.

$ sudo apt-get install libreadline5-dev

Install zlib1g-dev, helps deflate compression:

$ sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

Install flex, generates scanners that recognise lexical(words of language) patterns in text:

$ sudo apt-get install flex

Install bison, is a language parser:

$ sudo apt-get install bison

Install checkinstall, which keeps track of all the files created or modified by your installation script:

$ sudo apt-get install checkinstall

Download the cubit accounting software:

Untar the bz2 file after the download has completed:

$ tar xvf cubitl286.tar.bz2

Change into the directory and run the install script as root:

$ cd cubit-2.86/

/cubit-2.86$ sudo ./install.sh

Press ok to the first warning screen

Install the with the SSL installation(default) and press OK

The installation should continue, installing apache, compiling and installing postgres and finally installing cubit accounting. This will take some time.

Once the installation is complete, change to the cubit directory /usr/local/cubit:

$ cd /usr/local/cubit

To avoid the error that “httpd: bad group name nobody” which would stop apache from starting. In the Cubit directory under conf, edit the httpd.conf file. Replace Group nobody with Group www-data :

$ sudo nano conf/httpd.conf

User nobody

Group www-data

Start Cubit accounting server with the script under Cubit directory. Apache and Postmaster should confirm that they have started:

$ sudo ./start_cubit.sh

Using firefox webrowser on a networked computer, type in the IP address of the server and Cubit Accounting should be present.

http://192.168.0.3