Tech Forum

As a new Ward Clerk I would find it helpful to install the latest full-release virsion of MLS on my personal PC. I of course do not want to install real data but I would add some test data or wonder if there is a sample database included (it seems I ran across indications there is).

It would help me greatly to actually sit in front of MLS and play with the menus. Between the flurry of Financial transactions on Sunday, attending PEC and Bishopric Meetings, and living 10 miles from the chapel, my screen time is very limited and usually task driven.

Is there a way to load the latest MLS on a personal PC, and does Church policy allow this? I tried a "search" but found no posts dealing with this question.

Thanks

BarryHill wrote:Is there a way to load the latest MLS on a personal PC, and does Church policy allow this? I tried a "search" but found no posts dealing with this question.

MLS is *just* software, and like any other software its possible to install it on pretty much any machine you want.

In fact since its Java based now, I'd like to see if it'd run on my FreeBSD server

I haven't a clue what church policy is on installing it on non-church machines.

BarryHill wrote:As a new Ward Clerk I would find it helpful to install MLS on my personal PC. I of course do not want to install real data but I would add some test data or wonder if there is a sample database included (it seems I ran across indications there is).

It would help me greatly to actually sit in front of MLS and play with the menus. Between the flurry of Financial transactions on Sunday, attending PEC and Bishopric Meetings, and living 10 miles from the chapel, my screen time is very limited and usually task driven.

Is there a way to load the latest MLS on a personal PC, and does Church policy allow this? I tried a "search" but found no posts dealing with this question.

You can certainly do this. You need the MLS installer, which you can get from your Stake Technology Specialist (who can download it from mls.lds.org, which requires a password that the STS should know).

Once you have installed MLS, you simply add a special unit -- ward #108 or stake #2224445. MLS will recognize those magic unit numbers and automatically add test data for La Proba 1st Ward.

AdrianLP wrote:I'd like to see if it'd run on my FreeBSD server

MLS uses Afaria to talk to CHQ. But that part is not tested when you use test data.

RussellHltn wrote:MLS uses Afaria to talk to CHQ. But that part is not tested when you use test data.

heh, I should hope you could not push test data to a live database. But he asked about installing it, not pushing data to CHQ.

AdrianLP wrote:heh, I should hope you could not push test data to a live database. But he asked about installing it, not pushing data to CHQ.

He was responding to your proposition of attempting to run it on Linux.

mkmurray wrote:He was responding to your proposition of attempting to run it on Linux.

When he said, "MLS uses Afaria to talk to CHQ. But that part is not tested when you use test data." ?

I'm affraid I don't know what he meant then.

mkmurray wrote:He was responding to your proposition of attempting to run it on Linux.

Correct. While you may be able to get MLS to appear to run in your environment, Afaria, which is a Windows program, is what's used to talk to SLC. Until that portion is made to work successfully, MLS can not be run with real data in the environment you propose.

And since you can't run real data, you can't really do the hard part of getting MLS to run on Linux.

AdrianLP wrote:When he said, "MLS uses Afaria to talk to CHQ. But that part is not tested when you use test data." ?

I'm affraid I don't know what he meant then.

When MLS normally does a Send/Receive, it uses a Windows-specific communication component (Afaria). This makes MLS run only on Windows at this point, even though the rest of it is Java and so would probably run on Linux and other platforms.

However, if you are running MLS with test data (ward #108 or stake #2224445), MLS does not actually do any transmission when you select the Send/Receive option. Rather it simulates the Send/Receive and creates a couple of messages in the MLS message list. Thus the Afaria client is not actually used when you are using the test data, so that dependency is not an obstacle to running under Linux if you only want to use test data.

The installation program for MLS does install the Afaria client, so I imagine you would get some errors if you tried to run the install on a non-Windows platform, and thus the current packaging of MLS does depend on Windows.

Alan_Brown wrote:When MLS normally does a Send/Receive, it uses a Windows-specific communication component (Afaria). This makes MLS run only on Windows at this point, even though the rest of it is Java and so would probably run on Linux and other platforms.

Can Afaria be run under Wine? For that matter, maybe thre is a port of it.

But, perhaps he didn't even want to do a send/receive? This is what I thought. It looks like he wants to run MLS, see the various menus/options, but has no need to send/receive.

Alan_Brown wrote:The installation program for MLS does install the Afaria client, so I imagine you would get some errors if you tried to run the install on a non-Windows platform, and thus the current packaging of MLS does depend on Windows.

You just use Wine, and it doesn't know the difference.

But again, do they even want to do send/receive?