[Exist-open] eXist and Red Hat

[Dale P. <ldp...@ve...>]

I could use some advice from the list.  For the past 10 years, or so, my 
work has been making use of eXist for our on-line catalog and basic 
processing services.  We are very much committed to XML and have found 
eXist to be excellent over time.  I much prefer it over Monet and 
others, for example.  However, a problem has developed which our small 
one-man tech 'team' - me - can not solve.  Here is our problem.

Our web server  is a Dell 64 bit machine.  We are running Red Hat ES 5 
on it and I keep it updated.  Until last week I have been running eXist 
1.2.4.  Starting around 6 - 8 months ago a series of operating problems 
developed with eXist.  We have eXist configured to start at boot-up (we 
have a linked file in the /etc/init.d/ directory to the 
tools/wrapper/bin/exist.sh file) but it would no longer start at 
boot-up.  I wasn't able to find any reason why in the logs.  The program 
would start up and then stop.  I was however able to start eXist by 
going into a terminal window and using sudo on the tools/... file.  
Finally I couldn't even get eXist to start this way - after issuing the 
command I would get the statement that eXist was starting and then 
nothing.  The program just shut down.  For the past couple of months 
(probably more like since Sept) I had to start eXist in a terminal 
window using the bin/startup.sh command; which required that the 
terminal window stay open in order for the program to continue 
running.   While I can't say for certain, it seems to me that each stage 
of the problem with eXist coincided with an upgrade from Red Hat.  It 
just seemed extremely bizarre to me.  However, I assumed that upgrading 
to 1.4 would solve these problems.  I did that last week.  Let me also 
add that the primary set of xQuery scripts that I run on eXist are 
related to the old 'biblio.xq' which use to appear as one of the 
examples.  Our catalog is designed so that when a patron accesses it a 
brief listing of all of the document titles in the database appear.  
When I brought up eXist 1.4 (it booted just fine at startup)  the 
catalog displayed as it always had in the past.  However, every search 
failed.  No matter  what terms I used, or how I spelled things, the 
search always failed; that is it produced no hits.  I had defined the 
indices as described for 1.4.  Let me also add that for the past 6 
months I have been running tests on 1.4 at home on my Ubuntu box in 
preparation to upgrading the work site.  There had been no problem at 
home; 1.4 came up fine and I made all of the necessary edits of my older 
1.2 xquery scrips to 1.4.  Everything worked fine.  I was not expecting 
any problems.  So why not  just switch to Ubuntu at work?  When I got 
the Dell server two years ago, I tried, but Ubuntu would not run on it.  
I assumed it was because the Dell machines were 64- bit.

I am at a loss at what to do.  Can someone recommend a professional who 
for a fee would be able to get us up and running?  I am very much 
committed to eXist, to XML and to xQuery.  Many colleagues in my 
profession make use of XML documents only to break them apart to store 
them for search in SQL databases or in SOLR; so there is no to turn to 
for advice that I know of.  That seems to me to abandon the inherent 
strengths of an XML document and xQuery.  In any a case whatever problem 
I have created it is too complicated for me to resolve; I need some real 
professional programming help.  I work in the northern New Jersey area 
and if any one can point me to someone in the area who does this type of 
work, I would appreciate it.  Thanks so much.

Dale

-- 
Dale Patterson