I am going by the CouchDB docs install directions: http://docs.couchdb.org/en/2.0.0/install/unix.html
I install the dependencies:
$ sudo yum install autoconf autoconf-archive automake \
curl-devel erlang-asn1 erlang-erts erlang-eunit \
erlang-os_mon erlang-xmerl help2man \
js-devel-1.8.5 libicu-devel libtool perl-Test-Harness
Configure goes fine:
$ ./configure
You have configured Apache CouchDB, time to relax. Relax.
But just as I'm starting to feel relaxed I get thrown a curve ball by gmake:
$ make release
Uncaught error in rebar_core: {error, {erl_interface,include,"code:lib_dir(erl_interface)is unable to find the erl_interface library."}}
The only clue the docs give is to try gmake if make fails but since gmake and make are the same on CentOS 7 that doesn't help. From the output it appears to be a dependency issue but I don't pretend to understand Erlang dependencies or know anything about this particular one. I installed the packages in yum the docs suggest, I thought that should be enough. Any help would be appreciated.
I looked at an blog post about installing CouchDB 2.0 on CentOS 7 here: https://medium.com/linagora-engineering/setting-up-a-couchdb-2-cluster-on-centos-7-8cbf32ae619f
They include erlang itself in the yum dependencies. I tried this on my machine and that did the trick. I don't know if this is the best way to go but it works. If anyone has a better solution of installing only the needed erlang packages that CouchDB requires I'd like to hear about that.
Also if anyone managing the docs at CouchDB is listening, the install directions of the web page don't work for CentOS 7. I've tried it on two machines with the same error above.
Incidentally the instructions for setting up a couchdb user and group don't work on CentOS 7 either. To get it to work you have to know enough Linux to interpret some unusual options like setting up a system account and making it geco and interpret what they mean from the instructions that presumably work on Ubuntu and then translate that into the equivalent options that work on CentOS 7 and be pretty confident your not misconfiguring your server and creating a security vulnerability. You have to decide if you want to limit the people that are able to even install your DB to people who have those Linux skills. If you decide you do, I'm going to feel left out.