H5P on a USB Stick

Submitted by arne on Fri, 02/27/2015 - 07:54
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Installation and server related problems

I made a couple of tests of installing XAMPP with H5P on a USB stick, but it did not work, when moving from PC to PC. Checking the errors I found out that the errors might be related to the Bitnami Windows installer and not the XAMPP or the H5P installation itself. So I thought this might work if I do the installation using none og the Bitnami installers and installed it all more "manually". It looks like this procedure is now working. I havet done a lot of testing, but moving the USB stick between WIN8 64 - WIN7 64 and WIN 7 32 have all been working (But only tested with a few H5P modules.)

To make this "H5P on a stick" I downloaded the newest XAMPP revision that were available as a ZIP file (and withouth an installer), I extracted the XAMPP directory. I then installed Wordpress, newest version, using "the normal Wordpress procedure" (and not the Bitnami installer.) H5P were then installed according to regular H5P procedure.

It now looks like the XAMPP installation (with Wordpress and H5P) can be moved to any internal or external drive, including a USB stick, while it still will be working. If this appear to still work after some more testing this should make it possible to use any PC with a USB port for developing and run H5P content. (No server and no installation required.)

If somebody is testing out this "way of doing it" and find out it does work or does not work, please leave a comment.

If it works with more (all?) H5P modules and more (all?) PC's, I will try to make a "how to".  It might also appear that there will be som configuration issues for the bigger H5P modules. 

falcon's picture

falcon

Fri, 02/27/2015 - 10:40

Very cool! How big is the folder(in MB)? It would be cool to make it available for download.

arne

Fri, 02/27/2015 - 13:45

I will try to solve a small configuration issue (upload big files), test it out with all modules, and then try to repack it with all modules installed. I also think it will be a good idea to make a "downloadable" if there is som bandwith for this purpose. 

arne

Fri, 02/27/2015 - 15:55

Compressed file to ordinary Windows zip format with Lampstack + Wordpress + H5P: 457 Mb
(Using just standard Windows tool.)

I changed these values in the php.ini file:
(/xampp/php/php.ini)


post_max_size = 8M to 64M (Maybe to much?)
upload_max_filesize = 2M to 64M (Maybe to much?)
default_socket_timeout = 60 to 120 (Maybe to little?)

In Wordpress configurations files i changed nothing.

It looks like that it can be runned from any drive, but the directory name still has to be /xampp. If this is changed to as an example /xampp2, Xampp still will work, but Wordpress will not work. I guess it (Wordpress) use relative adressing like this: /xampp/dir/dir.. I have not tested yet if the xampp directory can be a subdirectory to another directory.

falcon's picture

falcon

Mon, 03/02/2015 - 12:26

Ok, do you use Google Apps or something where you could upload the file and make it available to everyone? We could link to it from various blog posts and comments. The H5P won't maintain the "H5P on a stick"(we won't make sure it stays up to date) but we would be happy to point people in that direction.

arne

Mon, 03/02/2015 - 15:31

The "H5P on a stick" installation has been running quite stabile and without a problem until now. My prototype is with my testing datas and with my private login datas. I could eventually make a new "clean" installation for "general use". You dont have a server with the required bandwidht? 

arne

Mon, 03/02/2015 - 15:37

By the way .. It could be that a more detailed "How-To" will do the job even bether. Then people can find the newest Xampp, the newest Worpdress and the newest H5P installaten, and the newest H5P all the time. Such a "prepacked bundle" will very easy get outdated. 

falcon's picture

falcon

Tue, 03/03/2015 - 18:00

We use Google Apps for such things, but we don't want to host it since people might expect us to maintain it and we would also have to think about licensing issues etc.

arne

Fri, 03/06/2015 - 15:15

I was thinking about the same things. The best solution might be a more detailed "howto". To install the "H5P on a stick" is also close up to a Linux server installation, so when doing the one thing, it might also be easy to do the other thing. When I have time, I will try to make a more detailed "howto" for the (Centos) server and for the "on the stick" installation. 

falcon's picture

falcon

Tue, 03/10/2015 - 18:13

That would be great. An H5P on a stick download or similiar is also a great idea, we just don't have the time to look into that yet.