How We Studied Magento. Day 1

One day we decided to figure out how Magento works. We were curious to get an insight into 'the first e-commerce open source platform.'

Installing Magento on Ubuntu. Initial impressions

Маx:

Ma-zen-to or Ma-dzen-to? That is the question.

Today, we all, including me, tried installing it. As usually, I was late for the lesson, so I chose to install Magento using Composer.

The first thing I didn't like was that I had to sign up to download the installation package. However, once I did it, I changed my mind.

The task was to describe the installation process.

To begin with, it's not that easy. Average users can't do this unless they are familiar with consoles. If one chooses to install Magento using Composer, then one needs to know how to work with it.

Also, it is necessary to generate a private and a public key in the personal account on Magento; it's a must. 

When installing Magento, I got a notification of what libraries were not found on the server, which is quite convenient.

I suppose that the further process of installation will go as in the suggested algorithm. Having had little time, I couldn't check on it :( ”

 Tanya:

“The package can be downloaded either from GitHub or from the official page. Unpacking and starting the setup is enough. First of all, all necessary extensions are being checked on, which is quite helpful. It doesn't take much time to install the missing components, and the installation goes smoothly. 

The first issue appears after the installation and the authorization are done  -  the user needs to run Cron. The documentation on it is quite vague and incomprehensible. It took lots of time.  
On the whole, the installation took approximately 90 minutes.”

Andriy:

“IMHO, everything is kinda overloaded. The installation process itself is awesome, it shows detailed notifications of errors, displays the information in the console and so on, but it requires some specific knowledge about PHP modules, cron setup and so on. 

In comparison with Shopify, Magento is a bit more intricate. Actually, I was dealing with it for two hours. That's all I can tell now, but it is said to have the 250-table database, so it'll be interesting to see how fast it all works. ”

Taras:

“Speaking frankly, I haven't taken a look at the code yet, but the installation was a sh*t. 
The first step included installing the PHP extensions such as .intl and  .xls, then changing permissions on public directories of a project. Another 15 minutes I spent logging in the admin panel due to Validation Error. It turned out that the system required a username instead of an e-mail. As for me, the protection is too complicated. The database is quite large (250 tables), but I haven't dealt with its structure yet. 

For juniors it will be difficult, a middle developer may have some difficulties too. Still, it's a big plus that the user can run the installation is running in console mode.”

Vitalik:

“This morning I arrived in a good mood and thought to myself: ”At last, we'll be scrutinizing proper cms but not a dull shopify.”

So I signed up and downloaded. Everything was working fast. I quickly solved all issues with settings and extensions... No difficulties occurred. I clicked Next and here it goes “Error: need MySQL 5.6”.

Hmm... OK, I'll install it. For about an hour and a half, my computer was making love with me. Later, I did install MySQL 5.6 though ... thanks to Vova who came and took care of my Apache… Unfortunately, I didn't have more time to get to know Magento better, which is sad, since I find this product quite good but hard to master at the same time. After all, it is built on Zend Framework.”

Regards, 
V.S. 

Oleksiy:

“Magento platform left a quite good first impression on me. Since the system is quite popular, there is plenty information on both official pages and open forums.

The standard installation contains a step-by-step guide with informative tips and a simple, user-friendly interface. Still, Magento has some system requirements for a server, which will need additional settings.”

Junior developers may have issues with PHP modules, access permissions, and cron job configuration. But even in this case, there's enough documentation to solve the problems. Apparently, it's impossible to evaluate the platform knowing it for only two hours, but  I feel we will become 'partners.'”

Summary:

It's a powerful thing with an extensive database. However, it's not an option to do all work on Magento. After installing the demo version, the catalog loading speed is quite slow, yet, everything is done. 

To be continued.