Requirements
==============================================

Hardware
--------------------

A computer. If it can run a decent operating system it is probably enough to run PiAnoS. 

If you really need figures:
	
	- 1 GHz CPU
	- 5 Gb of disk space
	- 1 Gb of RAM
	
.. note:: Although an iPhone responds to these hardware specs, there is a gotcha: the computer needs to run a `decent` OS, a category in which iOS does not fall into. Windows XP and 7, Debian Linux 5 and 6, OSX "put-your-feline-name-here" do (as well as many, many others).

For the record, this is the configuration of our current (2013.05.08) production server running 3 instances, serving tens of students and examiners for teaching and experiments:

	- 2 CPUs @ 2 Ghz
	- a 128 Gb disk
	- 4 Gb of RAM
	- Running Debian GNU/Linux 6.0.7
	
And it's `much` more than enough.
	

Software
-----------------------

PiAnoS is built using a `Apache <http://www.apache.org/>`_ + `PHP <http://www.php.net>`_ + `PostgreSQL <http://www.postgresql.org>`_ stack, requiring the following versions (or more honestly, tested only on)
  - PostgreSQL 8.4
  - PHP 5.2, 5.4
  - Apache 2.2

Note that these are all free software packages - even though some exist in paid versions with nifty features, you can and should use the `FOSS <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software>`_ versions available from the provided links.

I know PostgreSQL 8.x is getting old, but I had reports of problems with 9.x that are not addressed as of now (2013.05.08). So for the time being, please stick to the 8.x branch (or help me fix the problems with 9.x !).


Client requirements
-----------------------

Clients require a modern web browser that supports Javascript and SVG. This includes latest versions of all major browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Opera.

Firefox has been the historical recommended browser, and will stay for a while. But due to recent weirdness in Mozilla's strategy, this may very well change soon (Firefox is getting slower and clunkier each day, while Chrome is getting only better).

For Windows users: PiAnoS does **not** work on Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8. You need at least IE 9 or 10.