Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[mikeslr]

As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I frequently test, explore and --of course-- use various Puppies and derivatives. All my Puppies are Frugal Installs, and to make my life simple the directories into which all are installed are on the same partition. Originally, that made it easy to access the same SFSes. But thanks to Playdaz discussion of “Program Folders” and DaveS’s development of Opera_mnt_home and FoxyFun I discovered the utility of “installing” applications to my home partition, which each of my Puppies recognizes as /mnt/home. A Program Folder is simply a folder containing all the files the application requires to run. Since it resides outside the SaveFile, it takes up no “User Space.” In order to enable easy access to the application, I employ the technique used by DaveS in Opera_mnt_home and FoxyFun to create a script file in /my-applications/bin, where I also place an appropriate icon, and then write a desktop file in usr/share/applications. The desktop file creates a menu entry, which when clicked executes the script file, and the script file starts the application.

Recently I became interested in developing a website. While researching that interest I ran across a link which discussed using XAMPP (formerly known as Lampp) to develop, configure and test websites from within your computer. Or, in other words, without the need to acquire a domain in Webspace or test your customizations and settings on a “live” website. I was referred to:

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

Per that site:
“Many people know from their own experience that it's not easy to install an Apache web server and it gets harder if you want to add MySQL, PHP and Perl.
XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start.
The distribution for Linux systems (tested for SuSE, RedHat, Mandrake and Debian) contains:
Apache, MySQL, PHP & PEAR, Perl, ProFTPD, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, GD, Freetype2, libjpeg, libpng, gdbm, zlib, expat, Sablotron, libxml, Ming, Webalizer, pdf class, ncurses, mod_perl, FreeTDS, gettext, mcrypt, mhash, eAccelerator, SQLite and IMAP C-Client.”

It has now been tested in Puppy 4.31, dPup, sPup and the Lupus. Well, by tested I mean that when starting from console the application produced the following message:

Starting XAMPP 1.7.4...
LAMPP: Starting Apache...
LAMPP: Starting MySQL...
LAMPP started.

and I was able to access http://localhost via my webbrowser. I have not gotten beyond that. [Desiring to advise apachefriends to add Puppy to their "successful" distros, I looked into their forum and was distressed to find a significant number of unanswered requests for help. I seem to have gotten further than some running Ubuntus. Warning: use at your own risk and pleasure. I can't help you and help from apachefriends appears iffy.]
It is a large package -- 75 mgs compressed, 287 mgs decompressed. Its instructions were that it be decompressed to /opt. It would, therefore, be more convenient if it could be run from outside the SaveFile. After successfully testing it in Lupu from /opt, I figured out how to run it from /mnt/home. The test provided by the above link said to start Lampp from a console, and once it was running to open your favorite browser and type http://localhost into the address bar. Since I would be starting it via a script rather than a console command, any errors or failures would not be displayed, and I wouldn’t know if there was a problem until I started the browser and typed in the address. Figuring that I’d always want to start my browser once Lampp was running, I simply included the command to do so --and open to localhost-- into the script.
There was one snag I had to overcome, but as that involves a technique which might be of general interest, I’ve discussed it elsewhere. If you’re interested, see my post @ http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=510654#510654,

At any rate, I’ve provided two pets. lampp_mnt_home-.03 specifies that firefox be opened. lampp_mnt_home-.04 calls your default webbrowser. 03 was created in Lupu which doesn’t have a default webbrowser as all its webbrowsers are called from Program Folders on /mnt/home. 04 was created in Puppy 4.31 which does have a default webbrowser.
If your Puppy has neither a default webbrowser nor firefox, after installing either pet, use your text editor to open the xampp script in /my-applications/bin and change third line to specify the webbrowser of your choice.

REMEMBER that for either of these pets to work you must first have downloaded and decompressed the XAMPP tar.gz from the apachefriends website into mnt/home, and made certain that the folder created is named (or renamed) lampp, (NO CAPS) and contains a script file also named lampp (NO CAPS).

Happy computing,

mikesLr

p.s. Just thought I'd mention that the following link (although it's oriented to the installing Wordpress on the Windows version) provides good information on installing applications in Lampp. Skip down to instruction 13. The Linux version starts MySQL automatically. The address it tells you to type is to go into your webbrowser.
http://sixrevisions.com/tutorials/web-development-tutorials/using-xampp-for-local-wordpress-theme-development/

[GustavoYz]

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[GustavoYz]

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