freespire

[midwest]

I decided to try freespire on my laptop and am fairly impressed with it as it is for newbies but seems to hack well. One thing I do like is its debian based so you can use apt-get for installing software. You can also use linspire's CNR, they have made the basic access to their warehouse free, you just register and use it.

[midwest]

If you need to partition your HD see the previous thread on installing centOS.

Freespire is available as a one CD disk ISO. Once burned to disk just insert it and reboot your computer. You will be asked the standard timezone stuff and then will be asked to create a user. Do so. This will be the default "superuser" but not root. Lin/Free spire is funny that way, root access is fairly restricted, which is not a bad thing. During install when you do networking be sure to give the computer a static IP and not use DHCP. This makes using the web server among other things much easier in the future. Make it in the 192.168.1.x range. Most small routers and wireless routers use 192.168.1.1 for the default gateway. When making the user for the system use your PZ username, farther along it will become clear why we use it.

Now that it is installed(that was easy) we need to add some software to make is suitable for development.

first: right click on the task bar and click configure panel. In the window that opens set the size of that big ugly thing to "tiny". There that looks much better.

Open a terminal, that is the small black square icon on the left of the task bar.

One command to get familiar with for the Spire's is "sudo", with the super user this gives you fake root privileges which you need for installing software and editing config files. Any command that fails with "you dont have permission" just preceed it with sudo.
apt-get install something ... will fail
sudo apt-get install something ... will succeed

We are going to use apt-get to install some software. at the prompt:

first we need to get a config utility installed so do this:

sudo apt-get install apt-utils

this will allow us to config some apps at the time of install instead of having to edit files.

next:

sudo apt-get install apache

this will install the apache web server

next do these one at a time:

sudo apt-get install php4
sudo apt-get install phpdoc
sudo apt-get install php4-pear
sudo apt-get install php4-gd
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
sudo apt-get install mysqlcc
sudo apt-get install proftpd

you might also want to use apt-get to install:
gftp (ftp client like ws_ftp)
gentoo (a nice file manager)
nedit (a great file editor )
quanta (a very nice html dev environment)
openoffice.org (like MS office)
also do an apt-get search on openoffice to see all the other available addons.

Note:
php version five is php5
apache version two is apache2
do not mix and match: this is not a fashion show. Use 4/1 or 5/2

the mysql-server command will install pretty much everything you will need for mysql. During config it will ask how you want it started, select the at start up option. This way mysql is running when your computer starts

file to edit:
/etc/apache/httpd.conf
peruse the file to get familiar and you will see somethig about php and a handler. Uncomment that line the do this at the terminal command prompt:
apachectl restart
that will restart apache

next edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf
forget what the window said when installing mysql about adding a user just add the password in the client section. You should also copy this file to the /home directory into your username folder. Restart mysql like this at the command prompt:

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart

Use the menu "launch" button and go to run programs>web authoring and you will see mysql administrator, open it. In the logon box enter your username, and localhost for the host, leave the password blank. We already have the password file, remember we copied it to your /home/userfolder. Click Connect. You can use this to edit many of the aspects of mysql and to fix any experiments gone wrong. NOTE: to make a new user you need to login with the username "root". You might have a hard time trying to create a database so I will help you. A database is called a "schema". To create or drop one you RIGHT CLICK in the schemata box(lower left)

Mysqlcc is sort of like mysql administrator but less dangerous. Start it up and use the username and host only just like above.

Open your browser, Firefox is installed by default. type in your IP address
http://192.168.1.xxx
you should see a default page.
This page is at var/www/index.html, rename it to index.bak and make a index.php page with

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Next make a index.php page at /home/username/public_html, (you may need to create the public_html directory) if you used you PZ username the path should look familiar. In the php file use this for a start:

<?PHP
echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
echo "<p>";
echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'];
?>

Note the difference in what the page output is. You have to open up the perms a bit. I just chmod home and my user dir to 777

Now we will make a sym link called www to the public_html directory.
at the prompt type:
cd /home/username
then type:
ln -s public_html www
when the ln -s command fails remember what I said about sudo!

Now its just like the PZ structure where www points to public_html so you can use the paths:
/home/username/public_html
/home/username/www
both are the same
you can delete the www folder without hurting the public_html folder or its contents but not the other way around. Delete a file in www and its gone from public_html also! www is just a shortcut to puiblic_html.

Next go to:

http://192.168.1.xxx/phpmyadmin/

again just the username, no password.
That should be familiar to you.

NOTE:
apt-get is not blind. use:
sudo apt-cache search mysql
to see all the mysql packages available to you
sudo apt-cache search apache
to see all the apache packages
sudo apt-cache search ftp
to see all ftp server and clients, etc and so forth
the just use a package name and install it like we did the others.

That should do. You now have a linux development box.

edit 7:02 CDT
I had trouble getting vsftp to run correctly. Not sure if it was the firewall or vsftp itself. I removed vsftp
sudo apt-get remove vsftpd
and installed firestarter to check the firewall
sudo apt-get install firestarter
I then needed to go into the Kuser to enable the root account
start Kuser Launch>settings>additional>Kuser
double click the root account
under group tab select "desktop users"
under User Info deselect "account disabled" and then use the "set password" button to set a password. click OK
Open firestarter and I had a conflict where my internet was set to use eth0(the NIC card) and internet was set to use my wireless connection, so I set the internet to use eth0.
I then installed proftp
sudo apt-get install proftpd
and all was well.

[midwest]

With freespire editing some files can be bothersome unless you login as root. An easy way is to run vi as sudo. We will use the proftpd.conf file as an example.
at the command prompt(open a terminal) type:
sudo vi /etc/proftpd.conf
a text based editor will open the file. If the file does not exist it will be created. To get in edit(inseert) mode hit the "i" key. You will see at the bottom of the screen --INSERT--

In the top left corner will be a clack rectancle the size of a character. Use the arrow keys to move it around. You insert behind it.

In this case we will edit the file to allow use to see hidden files. Near the bottom of the file you will see "list options" the setting is -l, this means list files. we want it to be "-la" so insert an "a". Now we need to save the file. To do so we need to leave insert mode. hit the "esc" key. to enter commands you use the colon key. The command we want to use in this instance is wq. This stands for "write" then "quit" and it would look like this in the lower left;
:wq
hit the "enter" key
thats it. We have used vi to edit a file.

In command mode the most useful commands are
dd delete this line
#dd delete this number of lines ex 4dd delete 4 lines
G go to end of line
o create a new line below,move cursor to new line,enter insert mode

vi is the most text editor you will find for ease of use and quickness in a development environment. Learning to use it will make html and php coding much easier.

a good easy to use tutorial
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/helpdocs/vi.html

just the commands
http://www.chem.brown.edu/instructions/vi.html

then of course there is emacs type "emacs" at the prompt for a view of the most powerful file editor in the universe.

[cmyksteve]

Following one of your Linux posts earlier this year, I ordered the bootable FreeSpire CD from madtux.org. I borrowed my son's PC laptop, booted from the CD and was surprised to find I could even connect to the FON WiFi router here in the office.

I hope to get back to playing with linux sometime this winter- FreeSpire sure looks useful (and painless) so far. Many of the linux tips and coding solutions you've posted in the forum are beyond my level but some of these have worked out well for me. Thanks for all the tips and tricks- I appreciate them.

[midwest]

Steve,

Glad to help.

For the normal computer user who does not do much more than surf and thinks MS lookout express is just fine Linux is over kill and will always be "just a bit beyond" them. But for a web designer who wants to do a bit of scripting the brick wall is breakable, and once broken the rest is like walking up a sand dune. Once you get setup and have a working linux box with php and a server and understand how to use apt-get or similar to install things like php modules its relatively easy to grab examples off the Internet and run them on your box without all the hassle of ftp'ing files up and changing permissions, which linux preserves when unpacking a tarball.

.