The gitorious install script failed hard for me and left a lot of installed stuff on the system that I didn't know about. I actually prefer a detailed description of what to do over a magic script. However, I'd love to see packages for distributions - that way you can model depencies properly.
An up-to-date install script for Ubuntu can be found here: https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlab-recipes/blob/master/insta...
I think it would be a very good idea to make such scripts for other distros as well, and to test the living hell out of them. Your installation procedure is your biggest problem (just look at the size of the thread here), and you should fix it.
I've just spent the last 5 (five!) hours trying to setup GitLab, and I just don't get it to work. And I ain't no rookie either. This is the second time in about a year that I spent so much time trying to get this to work, and I'm about to give up on this project. I want this to work, and I want to use this, but this is insane.
I actually did a dist-upgrade from Lenny just to get this to work, and I made it through all the arcane steps (somehow) - but nothing. I can't get it to work. I can connect to GitLab, it redirects me to 'users/sign_in', and then it just crashes ('Killed', it says). Yup. Tough luck for me. That's five hours down the drain.
I'm sorry to hear your GitLab install didn't work out. I agree that right now the setup can be better. Just made a ticket to consolidate the install scripts, hopefully this helps making things work on multiple platforms. https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/2351
If you have it set in your mind you'll use it, then it's a good installation process as any. But if you're trying to evaluate options you might just end up saying "fuck it, I'll just use github", or something like gitorious.