After a while messing around with edX platform source code (http://iambusychangingtheworld.blogspot.com/2013/06/edx-source-code-exploration.html), I decided to run the platform using the recommended way, the Vagrant way. I followed the instructions from the edx-platform repo: https://github.com/edx/edx-platform#installation---the-first-time. But, there're something I had to do to make it work: 0. My computer (CPU) has to support virtualization technology or the vagrant environment will not run or hang forever :D. So, CPU core i3, i5 +... is fine .