We’re investigating algebraic maths questions in Moodle at the moment. One of the question type plugins is STACK.
I tried to install the STACK question type plug in but it wasn’t working. The error was “CAS failed to return any data”.
The CAS is a Computer Algebraic System. In this case it is Maxima. Our server is Ubuntu. The latest Long Term Support version available is 14.04 Trusty. The default Maxima package for Trusty is Maxima 5.32. The minimum requirement is 5.25.1 but it wasn’t working for me. I decided to upgrade after a test on my local system.
I looked for a Launchpad repository which I could use for a prebuilt package to upgrade with. There are RPM files on the sourceforge homepage (for Red Hat) but no debs for Ubuntu.
The only option was to build the package from source.
Steps:
- install Ubuntu package dependencies: automake; clisp; gnuplot; texi2html and texinfo. The latter two are for the help files.
- remove currently installed version of maxima
- open the installation instructions for building from source
- clone using git command in their repository or download from source. Remember that the latest version supported by the Moodle plugin is 5.36.0
- go to the healthcheck <moodle_home>question/type/stack/healthcheck.php
- purge cache and check that all the tests complete successfully
Our implementation of the STACK question type now accepts the simple test question shown in the authoring guide.