[TriLUG] Laptop and L.A.M.P.

[Scott G. Hall]

matt-nc wrote:
 > I'm thinking about getting a laptop that would run current versions of
 > Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP so I could work on learning those things
 > at a library.
 >
 > What would be the minimum hardware requirements for that setup to work
 > pretty good -- ie. processor and speed, RAM, hard disk?
 >
 > Any thoughts or suggestions on the subject would be appreciated,
 > including recommendations of good sources for a used machine.

If all you do is serve just your own laptop, or say a small group or home
system, even an older laptop should be fine.  If you are concerned with a
resource problem on an older machine, consider the following:

1) Use a smaller less demanding install of Linux: Slackware, FreeDUC
    (a stripped down Knoppix designed for older slower machines, and uses
    XFce instead of Gnome or KDE), Damn Small Linux, Cool Linux, ADIOS
    (with IceWM selected instead of Gnome or KDE), or KateOS.

2) Install the self-contained full LAMP package, XAMPP:
       http://www.apachefriends.org/en/   and
       http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html
    rather than the individual packages for your distribution.  This solves
    the configuration problem, gets you the latest versions of MySQL, PHP,
    Perl and so on -- and also the slightly older versions of each in case
    that is what you wish to run.

--
Scott G. Hall
Raleigh, NC, USA
ScottGHall at BellSouth.Net