Is that a spare computer?

May 21, 2008

Posted in: Computers, Do It Yourself, Linux, MySql, Nerdom, Networking, PHP, Programming, Tutorial

Tags: Apache, computer, core, DOS, ghz, gig, GUI, Hyperthreading, intel, LAN, mysql, php, predecessor, ram, server, Web, Windows, xampp

After my last harddrive purchase I explained to my wife how much space I would have (note to self, don’t do that again), she asked “Does that mean you have enough room for the kids games, so we can get rid of their computer?”.

Of course I answer too quick for my own good “Oh yeah sure”. What was I thinking? They might infect it with thier harsh treatment of shutting down improperly, constantly reinstalling programs, and of course they’re DOS based games! But it was too late, I had said yes, and if it weren’t for my oldest I’d be sunk.

He spoke up (I think he suffers the same quick to comment problem I have) and said “We barely even use it anymore, so we don’t need to use your computer dad”.

Sweet, totally off the hook and I have a spare computer to boot!

So what to do, what to do?

Before I go further, I want to give you an idea of the specs on the system, it’s nothing to write home about I tell ya, a intel 2.4 ghz (non hyper-threading, remember that? Hyper-Threading was the predecessor to dual core). 1 gig of ram and 200gigs of hard drive space (80 and 120). See nothing fancy.

The other day I tried to get simple installation of xampp installed (Apache, MySQL, PHP on Windows). For some reason it just wasn’t having it, and it’s not like I haven’t done it before, I have a laptop running it just fine. But I got to thinking, hey why not set up a web server on my LAN.

So last night I set about setting it up. I started with the newest version of Ubuntu (8.04) and tried booting to it, no go. So I downloaded another copy and tried, I got further but then I kept getting this Errno5 and I was getting rather disillusioned about the whole thing.

So I downloaded the server edition but went to bed since I had wasted so much time. So tonight, I’m going with server!

I found a great tutorial on setting up the server edition at zaphu.com, be forwarned though server edition has no GUI, but the tutorial goes over installing one.

So far so good, I can access the computer from another one.

I did it, Apache is so supportive, look at it telling me it works. So, while I’m showing this screen, the other computer is hard at work installing the GUI. But if you noticed, I didn’t type in an ip address to get to my other computer, I used a name “localwebserver”. Another simple tutorial found at geekswithblogs goes over how to change it in Vista.

So now I could either ue an ipaddress or name (I know, I’m using a leased ip address, but my local network doesn’t change all that often and I didn’t want to set a static ip - I may in the future though).

…(20 minutes later)…

Alright, so it is now set up with a GUI front end and I did a quick check…yes PHP is working, no tryingto download php files! I’m so stoked. I showed my oldest and he gave me a supportive “SWEET, you made good use out of that piece of junk!”. I did explain to him wat it was doing so that was part of the exstatic response.

Now I need to figure out how to set up the ability to ftp to it (specifically my directory). I think that’ll be my next lesson.

Posted in Computers, Do It Yourself, Linux, MySql, Nerdom, Networking, PHP, Programming, Tutorial