Mindquarry is an appealing proposition for users who need an easy to install and use collaboration solution. Mindquarry is written in Java, which means that you have to install Java Runtime Environment on the machine that will act as a Mindquarry server. Once you've done that, download the binary installer of the Mindquarry software for your platform (see Figure 1). (On Linux, you can choose between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.)

Figure 1: Mindquarry includes the Files, Wiki, and Tasks modules.

Next, you open the terminal and run the installer as root. The installer checks to see whether all the required packages are present, and you will be prompted to install any that are missing. During the installation, you will be asked to provide a few configuration settings, like an installation directory, a name for your Mindquarry server, etc. One thing you have to pay particular attention to is the Server Domain option -- in most cases, the server domain would be the same as the IP address (or domain name) of the machine running Mindquarry. For example, if you plan to use Mindquarry on your local network on the machine with IP address 192.168.1.2, then this is the address you have to use as the server domain. If you prefer to try Mindquarry first without committing yourself to a full-blown installation, it is also available as a pre-configured VMware-based virtual machine. Simply run it using VMware Player, and you can try all Mindquarry's features without installing anything.

Once Mindquarry is installed, start it with the /opt/mindquarry/bin/mindquarry start command. Point your browser to your Mindquarry installation and log in using the default user name and password (admin/admin). To change the default password and secure your Mindquarry, click on the Edit User Profile icon in the upper-right corner and change the default data.

The next step is to populate Mindquarry with users and teams. To create a new team, click on the Teams tab and press the New Team button. In the dialog window, enter the Teamspace ID (e.g., ``tinyteam'') and Teamspace Name (e.g., ``Tiny Team'') in the appropriate fields. Press OK when done. In a similar manner, you can create users with the New User button and add them to the team with the Team Members button in the team section. You can create as many users and teams as you like. In fact, you might want to create a separate team for each project and add the relevant users to it.