Need help with apache and hosting...

Since my last thread was locked after people kept spamming, I'd appreciate if people would not do that in this thread. Anyway, does anyone have any reccomendations of what type (windows or linux, etc.) of Apache server I should use on a small 400mhz PII computer. I only really need to host one site at this time. The only reason I'm doing this is to save money by not using a webhost. I plan on getting a DSL or cable connection at some point. Thanks for your help (and not spamming).

I would say go with something open-source and free. FreeBSD and some Linux distributions are free, so check them out.

The thing is I really don't know anything about FreeBSD. I've played with Linux a bit, though. Any particular flavor of Linux I should use (I've only used an old copy of Red Hat 4)?

I've never used either Linux or FreeBSD, so I couldn't tell you. I would go with FreeBSB myself, since it seems to be really popular as far as webhosting goes.

I agree.

imo the most important attribute of a server is the stability, reliability and compatibility...

imo freeBSD is all of these.

on the other hand you might be better with ASP and you should get windows 2003

Since FreeBSD seems popular, I think I might try it. How similar is it to Linux? Since there is no BSD download for the new Apache software, should I download the Linux version? Is it similar to a Windows binary? I have no idea how to compile sourcecode. Help?

Well, I must chime in with the FreeBSD "group hug". It's simply the most stable, secure and robust platform. If you have only "played" with linux, then chances are you know the *nix basics, and not the kernel or stack contained therein.
That having been said, they use a someone common CLI, with moderately common tokens and flags.
If you can install an application on one, you can do it on the other. (Perhaps even more easily, as installing software on a FBSD box comprises nothing more than learning how to use the ports collection. )

There's a wealth of aid available on the freebsd website, in the form of mailing list archives as well as the active list itself.

Good luck!

Cheers!

This actually would probably be better off in the *nix forum so I'm moving it there.

How much space do you need? Do you have a domain?

Am I asking for trouble installing FBSD on an XP machine? LOL I just don't want to pay extra for the electricity

Sorry (I completely forgot about this thread), but I decided to use a remote host to host my site. I can't get service quicker than dialup currently. One remaining question I have is for which flavor of Linux should I use for my home computer. So far Suse and Mandrake look pretty good. Does anyone have a particular flavor? Describe what you like the most about it. Thanks.

i'm biased, but i'd push suse myself. i just installed KDE3.3 a few days ago on my 9.1 personal and it's working beautifully.

This is for serving, not a desktop. One should never, ever run X11 on a server platform. Riddled with security vulnerabilities; stick with CLI for serving platforms.

Cheers.

You misunderstand, Daemon. This thread was originally about having my server in my home. I found it was easier and more reliable to use a remote hosting service. Now my question is what flavor of Linux you like. A desktop is specifically what I need.

I agree with CII. I've looked at a few reviews of Suse 9.1, and it sounds pretty good. YAST sounds like a useful tool to me. One of my main reasons for not switching to Linux was because of software and hardware problems. YAST sounds like it could remedy that situation.

Ahh. Well, serving is serving. In the home or otherwise.
Remote hosting is for the best if you plan on having a lot of visitors, I suppose.

As for desktops, well, all of mine are FBSD, but then to make FBSD work on the desktop usually requires some tweaking. X is not enabled by default, that is.

As long as your solution works for you, that's all that matters.

Cheers.

Hi,
I'm new to this forum. I hope you don't mind but I have a coupla questions and a few general comments. I've got Mandrake 10 and Suse 9.1. This weekend, I installed SuSe 9.1 and could no longer access my XP partition - I remember Grub doing that a while ago. I tried alsorts of things, fdisk /mbr, repair SuSe, etc. Managed to get XP eventually, then, I tried Mandrake 10 instead and it dual booted OK. Luckily, I ghost my disks, so it doesn't take long to restore them. I heard the latest Kernel is responsible for the dual boot issue - not sure!

I'm actually trying at long last to get a PHP/MySQL/Apache web server running on Linux. apache2triad makes life really easy on Windows - that's all fine but, some programs I NEED to play about with asap come as Linux distributions, e.g. phpopenChat (latest). Do you recommend removing the default installed Web server and just doing it all again? Nothing seems to work how I want/need it. Apache/php appear to work, well at least <?php phpinfo() ; ?> does, I haven't tried much else. But, I can't get phpMyAdmin working, despite messing about with the php.ini file, checking httpd.conf, etc. I'e been desperately trying to move over to Linux since 1992 for development/test work and finding it really hard as Windows is just so easy. I'm prepared to faff about if I know it'll work, but, for some reason, I just don't have much luck, although I did get Tomcat/JDK working. Even USB devices don't seem to work on the later releases.
There seem to be many FreeBSD fans on this forum - do you think I'd be better off going over to that?
I like using KDE, etc. and the webserver I need to setup is simply to test programs I write, obtain or integrate. I have a dedicated server with Rackspace so obviously security isn't a major issue with my development server, which is rarely connected to the Internet, I do understand that you just wouldn't run X11 on the optimal server though!
Sorry this is a long posting. I will keep future postings down. Any help getting Apache/PHP/Mysql and of course USB devices working would be great. I will trawl through all the relevant sites again.
Using Windows has been bad for me, because I keep forgetting how to do things in Linux and continually feel like a newby (in certain areas) - I've only been using Unix since 1990!
Thanks
Elaine