Hi,
I have worked with several local testing server environments and want to share my own personal experience to help the next guy/gal.
To replicate my shared hosting environment I used xampp for quite a while.
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
apache2 / mysql/phpmyadmin / php
xampp is fairly easy to install, but there is a need to configure security a bit. May take 30 / 60 mins to get used to it for the first time.
Instructions are quite clear, but still over the head of a noob, was for me anyway.
You can do seperate installs, rather than bundle.
Abyss Web Server ( http://www.aprelium.com/ ) was easier to setup and there is a web-gui that is definately helpful. THere is also instructions for configuring it to work with php4/5
Today I tried a different bundle;
Uniform Server - http://www.uniformserver.com/
Apache, perl, php, mysql, zend, open SSL.
This was by far the easiest setup. I actually had it installed, passworded, secure and a local copy of a cms running in less than 10 minutes. The tray icon is very useful and the web-gui is rather extensive, but perfect for beginners in my opinion.
It also comes with a joomla, xoops or mambo version... basically when you install it there is the cms intergrated, but I did not opt for this, instead installed glfusion to have a play...
Actually I unzipped teh package in 4 folders (only 2mb)
fusion, drupal, joomla, working (for a local copy of my actual domain.)
I can stop one and start teh next with ease...
All of the above options are cross platform, win, mac, linux and here is a comparison chart because there are other bundles available too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_WAMPs
Summary;
Uniform Server...
I wish I had fould this bundle first, it is absolutely what I need and very easy to get started with. Add the fact that it is a pretty extensive server bundle and it wins hands down for me.
I have worked with several local testing server environments and want to share my own personal experience to help the next guy/gal.
To replicate my shared hosting environment I used xampp for quite a while.
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
apache2 / mysql/phpmyadmin / php
xampp is fairly easy to install, but there is a need to configure security a bit. May take 30 / 60 mins to get used to it for the first time.
Instructions are quite clear, but still over the head of a noob, was for me anyway.
You can do seperate installs, rather than bundle.
Abyss Web Server ( http://www.aprelium.com/ ) was easier to setup and there is a web-gui that is definately helpful. THere is also instructions for configuring it to work with php4/5
Today I tried a different bundle;
Uniform Server - http://www.uniformserver.com/
Apache, perl, php, mysql, zend, open SSL.
This was by far the easiest setup. I actually had it installed, passworded, secure and a local copy of a cms running in less than 10 minutes. The tray icon is very useful and the web-gui is rather extensive, but perfect for beginners in my opinion.
It also comes with a joomla, xoops or mambo version... basically when you install it there is the cms intergrated, but I did not opt for this, instead installed glfusion to have a play...
Actually I unzipped teh package in 4 folders (only 2mb)
fusion, drupal, joomla, working (for a local copy of my actual domain.)
I can stop one and start teh next with ease...
All of the above options are cross platform, win, mac, linux and here is a comparison chart because there are other bundles available too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_WAMPs
Summary;
Uniform Server...
I wish I had fould this bundle first, it is absolutely what I need and very easy to get started with. Add the fact that it is a pretty extensive server bundle and it wins hands down for me.