Any LAMP gurus here? (Linux q.)

Crikey, I dunno. Maybe there are some Linux specfic websites out there?

Matthew, there are *tonnes* of specific websites, but I'm a newbie to LAMP and I need to know what I'm basically looking for first.

So, any recs. for versions of free unices, etc., most appreciated. SOmething easy to install, and preferably with a decent windowing environment.

John

If you want easy to install, go for Red Hat or Mandrake, both of which include everything you need, and are very easy to use. For a server, you probably shouldn't really be installing X and a window manager, but both come with up to date versions of these (Gnome, KDE, etc), and very easy to use config tools. Either could have you up and running with MySQL/PHP/Apache within an hour.

-- Ian

Ian,

How about security? This is for a project that *might* ultimately end up being quite visible, and whilst if that happens I'm sure there'll be some income to move to a better server, I'm not counting on it. So, are these distros pretty solid by default, or will I need to eat a few unix security manuals before putting it anywhere near an ISP...???

JOhn

Any modern Linux distro comes with iptables (OS-level firewall) and a GUI for managing same. If you want a really simple to use GUI firestarter is quite good (http://sourceforge.net/projects/firestarter/). I'd advise reading up on the subject, yes. O'Reilly publish some Linux server admin guides that cover most of what you need to know.

Linux admin is not vastly different from Windows admin: patch quickly when a vulnerability is spotted, don't run any processes that don't need to be running, close all ports that don't need to be open. Both Red Hat and Mandrake have their own Windows Update equivalents, their own Control Panel/Services equivalent, and GUIs for managing iptables, so all of these are easy.

Once you get familiar with managing all this from a shell rather than a GUI, take X and the window managers off, for both performance and security enhancements.

-- Ian

I have been running Mandrake and Fedora (Red Hat open project) for the last 4 years or so. Also installed and configed Debian and suse distros. Mandrake is really easy to setup and get running with Fedora a close second. The other two are a bit more finicky. Any of the above should suit your needs. Feel free to pm me if you think that I can be of further help to you.

Jim

For a server then Free/Open BSD is the most stable and secure OS out there. So I am told .

Good point DLF.

Free BSD is indeed the most secure, but not a great place to start if you aren't already pretty familiar with managing a *nix box.

-- Ian

Why not just leave it on W2K? Or W2K3Web? You can still run Apache, PHP and MySQL (although why anybody runs PHP escapes me)

Paul

Paul, main reason is licensing costs. This is likely to be a commercial venture (or at least, there is a chance that it may evolve in that direction) and though it pains me to say it, I like to keep the licenses all legal and proper like.

Why run PHP? Fancy a change; years of ASP and a couple of ASP.NET/C# have given me the thirst to try something a bit different. Challenge is my main motivator (plus, I'm trying to make my life as 'Microsoft Free' as possible - in the words of the Tesco ad "Every little helps"!)

John

I have a preference for FreeBSD. You know what you're getting and where it comes from. It's also 'freer' than Linux.

Paul