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Yes agree. I do a fair amount of work with small non-profits in the UK and this is the main thing that they use. Nearest thing for one table [forgetting Ruby on Rails] is http://www.phpmyedit.org/ with https://www.apachefriends.org/... for example, but it doesn't deal with anything more complex.

My feeling is that Access applications should be re-coded as web, give them more reach and a saner architecture, but non-specialists can use [and make a mess with] Access. Maybe we need a migration toolchain, convert to MariaDb and generate web forms? That would still leave some manual work though.

But have a look at xampp
:
https://www.apachefriends.org/...

It, and it "spiritual" peers, wampp (Windows)

http://www.wampserver.com/en/

mampp (Mac)

http://www.mamp.info/en/

Are commonly used in my local wordpress community for doing web dev work, as is the also mentioned bitnami

The Windows user can fix it himself by double-clicking a setup.exe stored on a CD-ROM or USB stick, provided by Broadcom or TP-Link or D-Link etc

No. They cannot. They don't know what a device driver is, in fact. They don't know how to verify if they have a hardware issue or a software issue. They just know "the damn thing isn't working! They have no idea what wireless networking is, except that they know they can connect to the intertubes.

"; the Debian user needs sysadmin skills , wired connection to the internet and knowledge about what a "firmware blob image" is."

... and the Microsoft Server 2012, Windows 7, Windows 8, etc. "user" (i.e. sysadmin) needs the same sysadmin skills. Again, you have shown where the user is ignorant, and that ignorance has bit him in the ass. He is trying to play system administrator sans the qualifications necessary to do so. If he wants to try his hand at Linux system administration he could use a distribution that is designed for a "user" (i.e. sysadmin) of his skill level. For example, Mandriva and Mageia cater to the newbie crowd quite well. They are but two distributions that will handle all the tasks you mentioned for you quite well, and have GUI interfaces for everything you want to do, including setting up a DNS Server, etc.

In fact, a good distribution like Mageia is easier to install and configure than Windows, and I mean by a long shot. If you have trouble believing that then you have never seen a typical user try to install Windows. I have never seen a user who could do it correctly.

How do I install a LAMP stack on Windows? I couldn't possible answer that in this post. How do I install a complete LAMP stack in Mageia? Simple: Open a konsole using the menu, type su - followed by the enter key, and enter the password to become root, then do urpmi tsask-lamp. In case you missed it, that was the complete instructions to install an entire LAMP Stack in one sentence. Sure, there are some "packages" you can use for Windows, but lets look at the first FAQ I found. What? I'm a friggin user! How do I know if I have Service Pack 2, whatever the hell that is? I thought Firewall was a movie with Harrison Ford! What the hell is a port? WTF!:

I have helped many, many people switch to Linux, and with one exception they all thanked me time and again for helping them get away from Windows and its complications. The one exception's objection? Somebody told me hackers use Linux! You installed it! Your a hacker! Get it off my system right now! Translation: He was a complete moron.

While it may be modded too low to appear, I haven't seen any comments about XAMPP. I've used it to teach a class on MySQL/PHP for several years, but it's just as good for simple HTML/CSS/Javascript. You can get it at http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html, and simply unzip it to the directory of your choice. The tone of the OP sounded like the company didn't mind programming being done during slow periods, but rather that they didn't want to violate their security policy by allowing someone to install software as local admin. Makes perfect sense to me. Many companies forbid bringing in personal computing equipment for similar reasons.

I am still waiting for my Pi, and probably will for quite some time, however while I wait let me put in my endorsement for a version of the XAMPP project for the Pi. One of the things I wanted to use mine for was a simple web development server, but XAMPP doesn't do builds for ARM yet. There is a niche there.

1. Download a VM like Virtalbox.
2. Download Puppy Linux .iso
3. Install Puppy Linux in Virtalbox. 4 gig dynamic drive with 128 megs of RAM will suffice.
4. Inside puppy download and install the pet package Hiawatha
5. Setup FTP inside your home directory (I think it's called setup file sharing)
6. Set your network in Puppy to a static IP and set Virtualbox to use a bridged adapter for the puppy install.
7. Use Notepad++, Filezilla in windows to FTP into your virtual box to update files.

That's close to a LAMP server. I don't think technically using Puppy/Hiawatha would be LAMP. But I believe Hiawatha serves the same function as Apache and I think would suit your purpose. if you're just interested in the PHP part you can also just install XAMPP.

The thing I like about the Virtualbox (or any VM) is you can wipe it out easily. You can move it to different computers. It's easy to play around with FTP and SSH settings.
There are tons of ways to do this without getting a host if you're just looking to learn. If you really want a host most have LAMP options. For many it is even the default. For tutorials I think W3 Schools is good starting point and has examples.

*All suggestions are debatable. When making these suggestions I considered using low resources and ease of use. Given more resources to give to the Virtual box you have tons and tons of choices.

The issues regarding Xampp security are well known and documented. (This is the link that would have made parent post a better post. But some persons prefer SHOUTING to backing up their assertions with useful informative statements.)

Basically, Xampp out of the box is not secure. It can be made reasonably secure for home / hobbyist level hosting and the link shows where to go to change settings and establish passwords. If the need is for a hardened site that adequately protects credit card data, health care data, patent almost pending data, etc, then there are better ways than Xampp. But if that level of security is needed, and the organization is seeking recommendations from Slashdot rather than its own security experts, then there will be a train wreck no matter what advice is given or taken.

Specific points in parent post are reasonable. In particular, if the only goal is to have a usable web site, then using Blue Host or a similar web hosting service is the best way to go. But you will not get much experience in configuring and securing your web site since the $6/mo that you are paying the host covers all that stuff.

If the poster has no experience with administering Linux, Apache, PHP, and MySQL, what good does Webmin do? Webmin is only user friendly to those who know what they are doing already. There are no really good explanations for anything in Webmin, so they would all be confusing to a Newbie.

If you want to start with something that is pretty automated, check out the XAMPP project for Windows.

If you are planning on using LAMP (instead of WAMP), I would suggest just using some of the awesome tutorials out there. They will pretty much walk you through every step. If you use Ubuntu Server, either install Apache, PHP, and MySQL during the server install, or learn to use something simple like apt-get. The basic command is: "apt-get install apache2 php-5 mysql-server" and almost everything is configured for you. Or, if you want to use something like Drupal 6 for your forum, you could just issue the command "apt-get install drupal6" and all of the other stuff should be installed for you (I say should because I have never done it that way). If you want to stick with phpbb, just issue the command "apt-get install phpbb3" and it will be installed with all of the dependent programs.

Most of the tutorials will walk you through exactly what commands to issue. If you go to Linux.org you can take a basic tutorial on how to use the CLI. The Apache site has pretty good documentation for most things that you'll need to configure the Web server. If you're going to just put one site on the machine, the basic Apache server setup is already installed by Ubuntu. You just have to start placing your Web pages into /var/www/ and possibly configuring a few settings in your php.ini file at /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to enlarge maximum file sizes, timeouts, etc. If you install phpmyadmin (apt-get install phpmyadmin), you can easily create the MySQL database and the database user and password needed for your installation.

When learning Linux, using the man pages and the "locate" command to find stuff is very helpful. Just remember to run the "updatedb" command to create or update the list of files and folders for the locate command. You can pretty much Google for anything you need help with, and you should be able to figure things out.

Or try using a hosting company with all this stuff already in place. Lots of them provide scripts that automate the basic install of everything. Once you get your feet wet, you can try installing it all from scratch, but that isn't really necessary at the beginning.

Ideally you should go to a place where they are really teaching programming. In my experience, first rung higher ed. (ie. 4(+) year programs) is more of a mill, where they need to keep their students base. Thus, they will lower their standards some. I was fortunate to attend junior college courses in an urban center, largely taught part time by professional developers. No one was there for the paper. Everyone was there to hone their skills, and the labs were demanding. I think you could do a lot of this stuff on your own, too, though that requires considerable legwork (and ideally someone to advise you) in addition to the programming. If you can take a couple of years off to go to school, great. Otherwise, continue to toil (helps develop character!) and take one class part time. A home webserver install is a must (windows: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html), and ideally a (Fedora or debian) linux install. Btw, I came to this field from science and have no CS degree. DIG IT AND HAVE FUN!!!!!! :D

Those of us with limited bandwidth on our Linux servers and developing PHP on Windows workstations use something like PHPEclipse with XAMPP and test locally first, then upload to the remote server and do final testing and tweaking from there.

"Several of the examples rely on MySQL, which I found a chore to install." For anyone out there who'd like to have MySQL, PHP, and javascript support in Apache should check out Apache Friends (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html) Their xampp project, available for Windows, Linux, sparc, etc. Is easy to install, and once you've done it, it's all ready to use. Full MySQL and PHP support. I also installed their Perl addon, and so far it's all worked flawlessly.

Isn't it? I have a USB key plugged into my machine that has XAMPP on it, and installed copies of Joomla, Mediawiki and other PHP apps as I need. Something to synchronise MySQL databases between machines would be handy but I'm sure there's something around if the need arose.

I don't know about the Delphi PHP IDE in the article, but if you are looking for a new develpoment enviroment, I would strongly recomend trying eclipse http://www.eclipse.org/ with PHPeclipse http://www.phpeclipse.net/tiki-view_articles.php and XAMPP http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. This compination is far more powerful than Dreamweaver, free (as in beer and speech), and has plugins available to support almost every every language I can think of. Which will help you in learning new languages with out having to learn a new IDE. Inaddition it can be made to run off a USB drive. Eclipse is java based so it is available for linux windows or osX.

The only advantage Dreamweaver may have is the WYSIWYG editor. There is an eclipse plugin for this (included in easy eclipse mentioned below) but I haven't used this much, since it's geneally faster and more reliable to edit the code to get the result I want. PHPeclipse includes an browser preview pane that, with the exception of directly editing the view in a WYSIWYG maner, is just as functional.

My two favorite features are the integration with XAMPP (an extrememly easy to setup and use local LAMP web server, which should work with Dreamweaver too) which allows for a Dreamweaver style design view for PHP code, and the Remote System Explorer (RSE) http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/tutorial/ plugin which allows you to connect and work on files on a remote webserver as if they were local, which is great for quick fixes and fixing typos.

To use eclipse, PHPeclipse, and XAMPP to create a portable development environment on a USB drive, check out http://www.plog4u.org/index.php/Using_PHPEclipse:I nstallation:XAMPP_Example_Installation for eclipse and PHP eclipse installation into XAMPP and this thread http://portableapps.com/node/929 to make it all portable. I would also recomend checking out http://www.easyeclipse.org/site/home/ for easy installation of eclipse with many of the most useful plugins preinstalled for you.

What? My webserver? As in, the one owned by the company who provide my hosting? Are you suggesting that I root their datacentre and reconfigure my account on the sly? Are you suggesting that they advertise themselves as providing mod_perl while leaving it completely unconfigured?

PHP has worked out of the box on both hosts I've used, and on every version of the XAMPP package I've installed. Even on the vanilla Slackware Apache setup, all I have to do is uncomment the PHP line in /etc/apache/httpd.conf.

As far as I'm concerned, PHP does work automagically. Which was my point: ease of use is important.

Should you have a Windows machine installing IIS is a doddle. (Installing and getting it to display a web page that is - not running it secureley).

Compare this to the http://www.revis.co.uk/site/?q=node/2 Apache+PHP+MySQL steps that one normally sees. It''s not hard, but its very alien to a Windows user.

Thankfully projects like http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html xampp are making life easier - well, not exactly easier, but rather acting in the way that Windows users expect these things to act. It'll help home users get to grips with it, and a large base of semi-skilled amateurs makes for a bigger pool of potential professionals and higher penetration in the long run.

What about XAMPP as opposed to WAMP? I use XAMPP and it's great, but I haven't used WAMP to compare. I assume it's pretty similar.

Any thoughts or preferences from /. users?

There's another similar project by the name of XAMPP. XAMPP comes with quite a lot of other handy auxiliaries as well, such as eAccelerator, and it's available for Linux, Windows, Solaris and most recently OSX. The interesting thing is it supports both PHP 4 and 5, allowing easy testing of an application on both versions - and at least the Windows version comes with an automagical version switcher. I'd recommend giving both packages a look.

Do note this, however (and I think it goes for WAMP too):

The default configuration is not good from a security point of view and it's not secure enough for a production environment - please don't use XAMPP in such an environment.

It's a huge improvement on any previous method we've used to organise our documentation - mostly FAQs, instructions, process documentation, links to external resources, screenshots, all sorts. Apart from backups (VBSCript to take a MYSQL dump and copy the images directory), I use HTTrack to take a 1 link deep HTML snapshot of the 'Special:AllPages' page. This can be copied to a laptop or flash drive for offline reference. The wiki pages cut-n-paste into word nicely too.

I've recently come across TiddlyWiki, which is very nice. I'd consider that for any future small scale projects.

Simon Hibbs

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html - XAMPP, full Apache/MySQL/FileZilla/PHP/PHPMyAdmin/etc. package in a single installer, I tossed the PERL addon in and that's my windows development server.

I have been using Linux for server for more than 7 years. It can't be easier to get LAMP working on Linux, much easier than that on Windows

If you are looking for a nice, free and easy way to install MySQL for Windows, then I strongly recommend XAMPP. I used it for installing my Open Source Information Asset Register, the Database of Managed Objects.

Just do a quick implmentation. Seriously its easy.

Pull down XAMPP and then uznip joomla into the htdocs directory. You could have the full technology stack and website contained in a directory. Fire it up and slap your corporate logo on the default theme.
It looks professional out of the box, just show it to the powers that be. The goofy name of the software should be irrelevant.

Also if you want to give a more in depth demo showing how to create content, install MOSCE and make it the default editor, its much easier to use than what mambo/joomla comes with.

Wordpress 1.5.2 and 2.0 work fine for me using Apache on windows, so I'm not sure what you're doing wrong.

It's very easy to install, and is set up to be easily administered. I now recommend it to users of my recently released DMO software, which provides a kind of Object-based DB layer on top of MySQL.

THEY USE IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST THING THEY GOT WORKING...

I think there is some merit to this statment.

I'd love to see postgreSQL added to the xampp package.

The nice thing about xampp is that you simply unzip it into a directory and suddenly you have a huge technology stack of apache, mysql, perl, php all ready to go for stand alone development.

I'm betting there are plenty of windows only developers that wouldn't mind giving either database a shot if they understood how easy it was to get started.

But after hearing all the fan-boys on this and other sites, and doing a fair bit of research into Mac OSX, I figured it was time to try out a powerbook.

After a few months of using it exclusively, I can't stand working with Windows or even KDE/Gnome now. A stock OSX Tiger install is incredibly useful (Exposé, Spotlight, iLife, Dashboard, and all that BSD goodness through Terminal.app). But after installing a few amazing (and free) utilities, it's the closest to desktop utopia I've ever been:

• QuickSilver - The most useful app I've ever used - hard to describe, but think of it as a command-line interface to the GUI (some use it as just an application launcher, but it's so much more).
• Fink - A BSD Ports implementation for OSX - think of Debian and Gentoo meets OSX - thousands of F/OSS apps just a command away from installing
• XAMPP - Apache/MySQL/PHP/Perl in a simple to install and run package.
• VLC - video watching without having to worry about installing dozens of codecs.

Never thought I'd say it, but I guess I'm one of the fan-boys now.

I still have a Windows box for gaming (although I have to admit there are far more games available for OSX than I imagined), and a few Linux boxes for serving, development, routing, etc. Although I now have all my development stuff running locally on my powerbook, so the linux boxes are less useful these days.

My message to people on the fence about switiching: give it a shot. It's not perfect, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of anything else.

Someone else already did the legwork...

XAMPP... It's a prerolled LAMP server. Unzip, install, customize.

XAMMP - LAMP


--Dave

I've been running Apache, 1 & 2, on Windows NT Workstation & 2000, with and without PHP for years with no problems. I have found that using XAMPP is the easiest way to install it, but I have got it working the hard way too.

Or just install XAMPP

yeah, that's what I was wondering, check out http://www.apachefriends.org/

Perhaps you've never heard of XAMPP?

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Where is the OSS answer to Exchange??

http://www.scalix.com/

Setup Instructions:
1. Use an Apple Computer
2. Download Aaron Faby's packages (and tip him a few bucks)
3. Install (i.e. click 'continue' until the screens go away)


Or, for Windows, Linux, or Solaris (Mac version in early stages of development), get XAMPP.

It's not bulletproof security-wise, but it's just the ticket for getting a development environment up in short order.

Another fiendly package that should probably be checked out is XAMPP.

And I love the way these threads always have a bunch of comments that say "Ooh, you should close that port on your firewall!" Usually, all ports should be closed, and you open the ones you need--not open by default and closed as vulns are announced. Remember kids: a firewall with all ports open IS NOT A FIREWALL.