How to Install Cactus Comments on POP! OS Latest

Cactus Comments is a free, beautiful and customizable commenting tool that requires no database installation or signup, and can be installed on any static website or blog. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps to install Cactus Comments on the latest version of POP! OS.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need to have the following:

• A website or blog hosted on a web server.
• SSH access to the server.
• Familiarity with the command line interface.

Step 1: Install Node.js

Cactus Comments requires Node.js to work. If you already have Node.js installed on your server, you can skip this step.

To install Node.js on your POP! OS machine, run the following command:

sudo apt-get install nodejs

Verify the installation by running:

node -v

This command should output the version of Node.js that you have installed.

Step 2: Install Cactus Comments

To install Cactus Comments, you need to download the latest release from the official GitHub repository. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Create a directory for the Cactus Comments installation:

mkdir ~/cactus-comments

2. Navigate to the directory:

cd ~/cactus-comments

3. Download the latest release:

wget https://github.com/koala-framework/cactus-comments/archive/refs/tags/v2.2.3.tar.gz

4. Extract the compressed file:

tar -xvzf v2.2.3.tar.gz

5. Navigate into the extracted directory:

cd cactus-comments-2.2.3

6. Install the required dependencies:

npm install

7. Build Cactus Comments:

npm run build

Step 3: Configure Cactus Comments

Cactus Comments comes with a default configuration file named config.json. You need to customize this file to match your website's URL.

Navigate to the config directory:

cd ~/cactus-comments/cactus-comments-2.2.3/config

Open the config.json file in your favorite text editor:

nano config.json

Edit the url field to match your website's URL:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "commentsPerPage": 20,
  "rssItemCount": 10,
  "commentsPath": "/comments",
  "commentsPerPageJson": 100,
  "locale": "en",
  "backupPath": "/backup",
  "backupRotation": "30 23 59 * * * *"
}

Save and close the file.

Step 4: Start Cactus Comments

To start Cactus Comments, navigate to the main directory of the installation:

cd ~/cactus-comments/cactus-comments-2.2.3

Then, run the following command:

npm run start

This will start the Cactus Comments server, and you should see a message like:

Server listening on http://localhost:3000

Step 5: Add Cactus Comments to Your Website

To add Cactus Comments to your website, you need to create an HTML file and add the following code to it:

<div id="cactus-comments"></div>
<script src="http://localhost:3000/widget.js"></script>

Note that you need to replace localhost:3000 with the actual URL of your Cactus Comments installation.

Upload the HTML file to your website, and you should see the Cactus Comments widget on your website.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Cactus Comments on the latest version of POP! OS. Now you can enjoy a beautiful and customizable commenting tool without the hassle of database installation or signup.

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