Building a LAMP server

FatStratCat

I am taking on an ambitious project, building a LAMP server.

I already have a computer, and I will be installing a new never used wesern digital 160 GB hard drive. I am just starting this project and I'm looking for some input.

#1. is this a good tutorial?

http://www.lamphowto.com/

#2. The computer I am using currently has a windows 2000 OS HD in it. Should I install this new drive as an independent second drive, and set the boot sequence to use the new one first, or pull the old drive and replace it with the new?

#3. what trouble might I have with synching the CD, monitor, etc. with the linux software? This is the first time I will be using linux.

#4 Any books you can recommend on this subject?

any help will be appreciated.

Sxooter

Short and easy method:

Install Fedora Core 4
select web server, mysql and / or postgresql install
set the databases to come up on boot.
Edit the one line in apache's conf at /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf that turns on php (search for php, you can't miss it)

restart apache, and you're done. forever pretty much.

thorpe

Long and complicated method:

Install gentoo. Then run...

cat >> /etc/portage/package.use << "EOF"
dev-lang/php apache2 curl doc gd mysql mysqli pcre pdo postgres session simplexml sqlite
EOF
emerge dev-lang/php
rc-update add apache2 default

Sxooter

Or, find the pglive CD online somewhere. Boot from it. All done.

FatStratCat

does it matter what type of processor the computer has?

thorpe

does it matter what type of processor the computer has?

Not really. Linux will run on most anything.

To answer your questions.

#1. Its Ok, if a little dated, but that should't matter too much.

#2. This really depends on weather or not you want to use both drives. If you want to dual boot, you may aswell just leave the original one in there and make the new one a slave.

#3. This really depends on what distro your using. There are user freindly distro's (Suse, Fedora, Mandrake) that setup hardware drivers for you. Then there are more involved distros (Gentoo, Slackware), where you'll need to configure the kernel (and drivers) yourself.

#4. In my opinion. LAMP is just a phrase. I dont believe there could really be any detailed LAMP book or guide as each component (Linux, Apache, Mysql, Php-Perl-Python) is a broad topic in itself.

The best thing you could probably do, having not used Linux before, would be to get your hands on a more user frendly distro (I got a copy of Suse free with a magazine) and install it. From there you should be able to find a guide relevent to that particular distro on installing apache, mysql, postgres, php whatever.

Then, well, its just a matter of playing around. I used Fedora for about 8 months before I decided I wanted to try a more hands on distro and moved to Gentoo. It just depends how involved you want to get and how much time you want to devote to it (the learning experience).

Hope this helps, at least some.

FatStratCat

thorpe,

It's been suggested to me by some one esle to try either Suse or Fedora, too. From what you say, I think I'll give Suse a try. The more user friendly the better!

I will check out pglive and read more on Fedora before I do anything. It doesnt' matter much to me what distro I use, but I'm just not experienced enough to be running a complicated one at this point and of course one that suits my needs willl be the best.

Thanks for the feedback, all.

Edit,
I was reading up on Suse and the differences between it and fedora, and there's one comment they made that I didn't understand:

What is the security update life cycle for SUSE Linux?

SUSE Linux is updated for 2 years. For longer code guarantees and update cycles, Novell provides business-class Linux solutions based on SUSE Linux.

What happens after two years? What do they mean by "code guarantees"?

thorpe

Where is that quote from? I think I would like to read it in a better context.

FatStratCat

Here. It's #13:

http://en.opensuse.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions

thorpe

Yeah... sorry. Ive no Idea what that meens.

FatStratCat

Here's the answer I found at the SUSE site:

it means that they intended to maintain security and bugfixes for 10.0 until somewhere around early 2008. if someone requires a system that will have a longer patch cycle, they need to look at a commercial enterprise product, and lay out some cash.

Sxooter

If you need help finding a copy of pglive let me know. I got mine from bittorrent. It was made by SRA software and is a very cool little live CD distro that fits on those 3" discs and uses ~150 megs. It gives you a linux apache postgresql php server up and running by just booting from it. Tres cool.

thorpe

Damn Sxooter. That sounds exactly like a project Im working on ATM. Gentoo GNU/Linux, apache, php4 & php5, postgres, mysql, xfce (desktop) and a few OS php editors (not sure which yet) all on a live cd.

Sxooter

well, the pglive disk was from over a year ago, so I'm sure it's pretty dated by now. If you need a copy to look at let me know and I'll toss a bittorrent up somewhere.

thorpe

Should be ok. Mine is comming along, but its still in a chroot environment. Havent built a kernel or anything yet. Having a bit of trouble getting php4 and php5 to play nice together but I'll get there.

FatStratCat

Sxooter wrote:
If you need help finding a copy of pglive let me know. I got mine from bittorrent. It was made by SRA software and is a very cool little live CD distro that fits on those 3" discs and uses ~150 megs. It gives you a linux apache postgresql php server up and running by just booting from it. Tres cool.

Couldn't find it anywhere. Is it more on the techie side, meaning do you need to understand a lot of coding to manage it? Sort of like openSUSE vs Fedora, with openSUSE being more beginner/user friendly than Fedora.

Also - is it supported or updated?

Sxooter

It was developed as a demo disc to hand out at conventions. I don't believe it is actively maintained, but I could be wrong. I'll post a message to the pgsql-general list and see if it is maintained or not.

It's dead simple to use and maintain. All you do is boot from it.

tomhath

No need to dual boot. VMWare player runs close to full speed:

You can get a copy of VMware player for free from here:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

And a ready to go LAMP appliance here:
http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/project/lamp/releases

thorpe

Why on earth you would ever wont to run Linux inside of winblows is behond me.

Sxooter

We ran Windows (and linux) within Linux and Linux (and windows) within Windows at my last job. Generally speaking, it's more productive to run Windows in Linux, since Linux rarely crashes from load. I.e. if you start running too many vmware sessions linux will generally just bog down.

But I'm not talking about dual booting. I'm talking booting a live distro from the CD. No install needed. it's very useful for learning, and you can run it on borrowed equipment without having to install anything on it.

For LAMP stuff, I've found linux to be WAY easier to set up and maintain, plus, I'm a LAMPP guy, so I need my postgresql, which until recently was only available in production form on unix like OSes.