First MediaWiki, now Deki Wiki...

September 20, 2007 8:01 AM

WikiFilter: Can I do for Deki Wiki what's worked so well for MediaWiki?...

About a year ago, AskMeFi helped me set up MediaWiki on my home computer by running Webserver On a Stick (WOS) for the requisite software and following the MediaWiki install instructions otherwise. Later I found that I could copy all the files to a USB drive and port it around with me, from home to office, and it's been working great.

Now I'm interested in "upgrading" to another free wiki that is also WYSIWYG (for use by me and my non-techie fiancee), Deki Wiki. The trouble is, I am still an unrepentant Windows user and all of their documentation seems to written for Linuxheads.

It seems Deki Wiki requires the same LAMP architecture as MediaWiki, so hoping against hope...can I just keep WOS but have it run Deki? (I realize I'll have to port all the data from MediaWiki over by hand). Here is a picture of my current setup on the USB drive that I'd like to recreate. Thanks for any and all help!

posted by mjklin to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Safe time and effort and use a desktop wiki. I can recommend MoinMoin DE. The only thing it needs is a python installation.
You start MoinMoin DE, it runs a webserver on localhost with a running wiki. It stores all its information in the filesystem, you don't need any database.
posted by donut at 9:15 AM on September 20, 2007

I wasn't going to comment because I've never worked with USB-based webservers, but no one has... Take this with a grain of salt, knowing that my experience is only with "real" Linux webservers.

Your link is broken. Fixed link.

It looks like you've got all the stuff you'd need for Deki so it should be technically possible. But, unless they already have an "on-a-stick" version (I'm a little disappointed the phrase "Wikisicle" has never been used), you're probably going to have to spend some serious time tweaking config files to make it look for PHP, MySQL, and Apache in the odd places that they're running from.

It's almost certainly possible. I'm just not sure how easy it would be.

As an aside, if it's multi-user, do you really want it on a USB stick, as opposed to hosted somewhere? (Maybe here, per Google?)
posted by fogster at 9:17 AM on September 20, 2007

no one has... meant that no one else had commented, which is no longer even accurate. Just didn't want you to think I'm claiming that no one has used 'wikisicles' before.
posted by fogster at 9:18 AM on September 20, 2007

As to why I'd like it on a stick...well, eventually I'll move it to a home network of some sort that's accessible by my family. I would rather not get into hosting plans...this is going to personal information and I don't think I'm comfortable with that quite yet. Also, if it's free, what's the limit? If it's not free, do I have to pay a monthly bill indefinitely just to get at my content? (I currently pay zero besides basic internet service).

Donut, thanks for the link to MoinmoinDE...I'll give it a shot and see if it's comparable to Deki Wiki.
posted by mjklin at 9:38 AM on September 20, 2007

I figured it out...it's been discussed here (and amended a bit by me). I really do encourage everyone who's interested in wikis to check out Deki Wiki. I hope it's only a matter of time before Wikipedia switches over!
posted by mjklin at 10:23 AM on October 4, 2007