teh SUCK is high with movabletype
 

There must be some trick to installing moveable type that they leave out of the installation guide.

That's all, really. I mean, it's a cgi script, they are usually easy enough to install, but every guide I've found so far is based on earlier versions of movable type, and they all seem to assume that the blog is going to be on some inner directory, like www.example.com/blog/.

oh well, trying again later.

There was something with their mod_rewrite and rewrite_base that I recall -- what is the issue you're having with it?

Well, at this point I'm still in the earliest stages of trial and error, I tried to install at the very end of the workday yesterday and got a classic 500 error.

I'm reuploading now making sure the upload is in ascii, (I left it on auto the first time) then will try again.

The install guide is pretty sparse - I get the impression they want to sell sixapart installs, lol.

Here's the knowledgebase page I'm working from:

http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/..._cgi_file.html


I get a 500 Internal Server Error when trying to run the Movable Type CGI files.
Answer

This is a very generic error which occurs when a Perl script fails to execute. The standard things to check are:

• Is the path to Perl correct in the first line of each script?
• Were all of the script files uploaded to your server, and in ASCII mode? (Check for missing files and do not rely on an Auto-Detect feature for upload mode.)
• Have you set the proper permissions (UNIX equivalent of 755; read/write/execute) on the .cgi files?
• Is the version of Perl on your server at least 5.004_4 or higher?

And this is the install guide - I was surprised to say they only mentioned permissions for the mt-static folder, and nothing about permissions for the cgi files:

http://www.movabletype.org/documenta...e-via-ftp.html

Install Movable Type via FTP and the Configure Wizard ¶

1. Download the latest release of MT5: Movable Type Pro or Movable Type Open Source.
2. Un-compress the downloaded MT-5.0-en.zip (or MT-5.0-en.tar.gz) archive. Usually just double-click on it.
3. Upload (or move) the static directory (MT-5.0-en/mt-static) via FTP to the web root of the website.
4. Update permissions for mt-static/support directory to 777. More about file permissions.
5. Upload the application directory (MT-5.0-en) without the static directory (MT-5.0-en/mt-static) via FTP to the cgi-bin directory. Rename the application directory from "MT-5.0-en" to "mt".
6. Create a Movable Type configuration file using the Configuration Wizard. Access the Movable Type application (url will be similar to http://www.domain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi) and Movable Type will redirect you to the Configuration Wizard if Movable Type can't locate the mt-config.cgi configuration file. Learn more about the Configuration Wizard.
7. Create the administrator account. Click "Continue".
8. Create the first website. Click "Finish". Movable Type will then initialize the database with all the configuration options and settings specified.
9. Click "Sign into Movable Type"... you've installed Movable Type

500 error on a cgi file could be that

#!/usr/bin/perl

line isn't correct for the system you are installing on.

it could be

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

If you uploaded in auto/binary, the CR/LF could also cause it.

If the files are not chmod 755, you can also get the 500 error.

Well, the install worked fine with a fresh mind, everything freshly reuploaded in ascii, and I chmodded the main cgi files all to 755 just to be sure, following the methods that usually work for installing cgi scripts.

Moveable type is still strange, to someone who has become used to wordpress and drupal. Clearly I have study to do to figure out how to get the appearance the way I want it.

It's still an odd cms. Why dont things publish to the front page? Why is appearance so complicated?

It is nifty that the output is in html.

MT has issues working off the domain root, blogs you create always go in a subdirectory off the main domain. You -can- get it to work off the main domain root but then you have to do some shit with rewrite rules, or you'll be forced to have a single blog per MT install (and not the multiple blogs per install).

Multiple blogs on different domains are also a pain in the ass because MT insists using the search script etc. off a single domain.

Well it's totally the wierdest cms I've ever played with.

It's interesting, but it keeps doing unexpected things on me, I never have any idea what it is going to do when I hit publish.

The distinction it draws between website and blog still confuses me. And I've just barely begun to figure out it's widgets. Or how to edit it's appearance.

Or how to create a blogroll.

Earlier tonight I finally got it to publish roughly the way I wnated it, with blog entries posting to the root of the domain, but I feel certain thats a fluke, and teh next time I make an entry it will totally fuck up the root index again.

There doesn't seem to be all that much in the way of good advice available on how to work with it either. At least my searches are all finding old pages based on mt 3 and 4.

Still, like working on an antique engine, it's kinda satisfying. And if it can be used to create really stable blogs with low server load that could be worth the learning curve.