Software Development Environment

[HCSuperStores]

Hello Fellow TCHers,

 

In the past, I've used Apache, MySQL and Perl on my windows machine for developing software, but it's not the same and not the best. There are compatibility issues, OS limitations and programmatic problems as my development becomes more complex.

 

I've tried making a partition, actually an old 6GB HD that I still have, and loading that with Debian Linux. It just didn't go very well and I never got things to work right. On top of this, I really need access to my Windows side. Hopefully this will become less and less necessary as time goes on.

 

It's been over a year since this first attempt and I'd like to give this another go. I'm willing to hook up my 6GB HD again for this or sacrifice 4-6GB on my existing one if necessary.

 

My machine, although behind in the times, does have 320MB of RAM.

 

If you have some ideas, especially if they are tried-and-true examples from your own experience, I would appreciate them. If your idea comes with a desktop environment, containing the usual office suite, I might be inclined to ditch my Win environment all together after I feel comfortable with it.

 

Thanks for your suggestions in advance! (free is great, but practicality is king)

[borfast]

You should try some Linux distros. Get Mandrake Linux and Fedora Core (ex-Red Hat) and try them. It's the only way you'll know if they fit tour needs.

I'm using Linux exclusively for quite some time and I'm really happy with it. No more bluescreens, no more reboots just because I changed some system setting, no more programs crashing (well, the majority of them, anyway )...

 

You have some interesting reading about this subject, right here on TCH forums:

Linux As An Os, Interested in learning more

It Had To Happen

Linux Live Cd List

Seattle Times Reviews Desktop Linux Distros

 

Download one of them, install it and see what you think

If you need any help, just ask

[schussat]

I agree with Raul: Just try some distributions and see what happens. I have been using Mandrake for close to six years now and recommend it. Some of the Linux Hard-Core sneer at Mandrake because of its "user friendly" roots, but it's never failed to do anything I need from it (it will have no trouble with your development needs, certainly).

 

I haven't yet tried any of the 10.0 releases. You might give 9.2 a try and get the full 10.0 release in a couple of months. Both versions include the OpenOffice suite, which has become a pretty good replacement for Office.

 

Alternatively, I have heard really good things about the CD-based distributions like Knoppix. They'll give you a desktop environment (I prefer Gnome to KDE) and a bunch of applications, and will let you test everything out before committing the HD space.

 

-Alan

[TCH-Rob]

After several crashes and much data loss I tried a few of the CD bootable versions. After a few days I made the switch permanently. Of course I am running with the devil, FreeBSD, and not Linux specifically but I can still do all the things I was doing. I work with my Excel files still, easier for me to work with PHP. I use KDE, I think it was the first in line so I chose it. Whatever version you pick for the OS or Desktop environment you should be able to do what you are looking for.

[borfast]

Alan, actually, Mandrake 10.0 is already out

 

If you're a Mandrake user, I'll take the chance to ask you: did you ever have any problems with RPMs and installing programs because of the location of some files? If I get an RPM built for Fedora Core, will it work on MDK?

 

I liked Mandrake Move *a lot* and although I love Red Hat/Fedora Core, I'm thinking about trying MDK 10.0. FC1 already has some nice system configuration tools but MDK seems to be even better and although I know how to do most of what I need via command line, I'm lazy and I like a nice graphical tool that does the job for me

 

Oh, one more thing, I know KDE has always been the prefered desktop for Mandrake but I like Gnome better. How is MDK's Gnome-KDE interaction?

[HCSuperStores]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for your input. I'll be looking at those links Raul too.

 

It seems I have some reading to do! But that's ok ... I don't mind. I'm comfortable with this.

 

I've been playing with Knoppix the last couple of days. I read some review in Tom's Hardware and they gave it a Thumbs Up. No harm since it's all off of the CD.

 

It uses the KDE desktop, which I really like so far.

 

Another thing that you may or may not know about is the ability to switch operating systems. Dual boot is one option, this single-CD Knoppix is another. Any other suggestions here? Do you have any favorites in making the dual boot work well and partitioning existing hard drives?

 

Thanks again and please keep up the discussion. The more I hear about your expereince the better I'll be informed.

 

Thanks!

[borfast]

I have one favorite for partitioning the hard-drive: Partition Magic. But to be honest, I have only used it twice and I don't know any other. I just had PM here so I used it but I believe there are other tools that can do the same - and for a lower price

[HCSuperStores]

I read through that thread with the large discussion on Linux. Very good info. It was about 9mo old though, so maybe it's time to revisit the subject and talk about distributions. I read through all the other threads too. One was protected and I couldn't access it.

 

I seem to come across 3 major distributions: Debian, Mandrake and Red-Hat. RH seems to be talked about most.

 

Something I didn't realize is that you can basically pick your windows GUI. The two I've seen and you have talked about is KDE and Gnome.

 

I think I'm really building for a complete switch to Linux. It just makes too much sense. I have another PC with Windows on it that I can fall back to if I get really stuck, but I think it's time to cut the cord.

 

As I bring all of this together it brings on more detailed questions.

 

What are the main differences between the different releases? I'll start my reading too, but experience in this area is invaluable.

 

Software is another issue, but I've found it just about everywhere. I'll be looking for:

 

Office Suite (OpenOffice?)

IM Client (gaim?)

E-mail client (???)

Database (will be MySQL)

Perl release (with distribution?)

HTML Editer (???)

FTP GUI (???) * not necessary, but makes life easier

Download optimizer

Perl code editor: I can use anything, but if there was something out there that people like please speak up.

 

The search/learning continues!

[HCSuperStores]

FYI - Mandrake 10.0 uses Linux 2.6.3

[schussat]

Hi Raul-

 

I know 10.0 is out, but my understand is that what they're calling the "community release" is really the equivalent of an advanced release candidate. I ran the RC of 9.2 for a while, and it was nice, but there were significant updates later, so this time I decided to wait for the stable release, whatever they're calling it.

 

If you're a Mandrake user, I'll take the chance to ask you: did you ever have any problems with RPMs and installing programs because of the location of some files? If I get an RPM built for Fedora Core, will it work on MDK?

Good question. I think the answer is "it depends." I've had no troubles installing lots of non-Mandrake-specific RPMs, but I don't know if I've actually tried any Fedora-specific RPMs. My intuition is that the closer you get to packages for a specific distribution, the more trouble you're likely to have. So, while miscellaneous sourceforge RPMs seem to go just fine, distro-specific cutting edge RPMs may have trouble. That's nothing but speculation, however. I'd be interested to see what you come up with.

 

Oh, one more thing, I know KDE has always been the prefered desktop for Mandrake but I like Gnome better. How is MDK's Gnome-KDE interaction?

 

Seems fine. Like I said, I prefer Gnome, too, at least since 9.2. I haven't noticed any problems, although I use very few KDE applications.

 

Any other suggestions here? Do you have any favorites in making the dual boot work well and partitioning existing hard drives?

 

Hi MC: Never had any problems dual-booting, on any of three machines where I've put linux. Mandrake's own partitioning tool is actually really pretty good. With backups made (and breath held) I've used it to repartition a couple of NTFS partitions, too -- no sweat. Dual booting is really straightforward and comes in handy.

 

MC, regarding software: All the stuff you're specifically interested in (Gaim, OpenOffice, etc) will be readily available regardless of the distribution you choose (although, and somebody will have to correct me here, releases of stable versions of some packages for Debian lag behind releases for other distributions; this is because the Debian maintainers focus on heavy-duty stability). Perl is easy to install (mdk 9.2 comes with 5.8.1); GUI FTP clients include gftp and, as is frequently the case in free software, there are a dozen alternatives; I haven't used any download optimizers, but I know that they're out there, as are the handy dozen text editors for working in HTML and perl code.

 

Let me know if you want more specifics -- I don't want to overwhelm you too quickly!

 

:Nerd:

[HCSuperStores]

I'm downloading the Mandrake 10.0.

 

You are right about the "community" release. I did read what they are going to call it when it is officially the stable release, but I can't remember what that is.

 

Since I've already done some experimentation and used some of the applications offered, I'm not overwhelmed yet. I'm actually more excited about trying this now than before.

 

I'll attempt to install it on a 6.0GB spare HD that I have. It should be enough for me to install and play and still not hurt anything.

 

Wish me luck!

[borfast]

HC, you'll have software available for all of those tasks you mentioned in just about any distribution you use

 

Office Suite - OpenOffice, KOffice

IM Client - Gaim and a bunch of others (but gaim is the most popular)

E-mail client - Evolution, Mozilla Thunderbird, KMail, Sylpheed Claws...

Database - MySQL it is but you can also chose PostgreSQL, if you prefer

Perl release - These are usualy up to date in all distributions, since PERL is something heavily relied upon, for system scripts (at least on Red Hat / Fedora Core)

HTML Editor - Kate, Bluefish, Quanta, Mozilla Composer (only the last one is GUI based)

FTP GUI - GFTP, KFTP....

Download optimizer - Downloader for X, KGet

Perl code editor - I use Bluefish for all my web coding needs (HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP but it supports syntax highlighting for a lot of other languages, including PERL)

 

If the software you get with the distribution you chose is not enough, just head over to freshmeat.net, sourceforge.net and perhaps linux.tucows.com, search for what you want and download the goodies!

 

About the differences between each distribution, well, some distros prefer to include just a minimal set of tools to make your computer work as a gateway/proxy, others want to give you a full desktop environment and provide tools for every-day work, others concentrate more on server software... Some include tools to make them easier to administrate, others have no tools at all and you have to do everything by hand...

 

You see, Linux is actually only the Kernel of the operating system. All the rest is (usually) Free/Open Source software (a lot of it from the GNU project) that the distribution makers throw in the mix - hence the name "GNU/Linux". You can strip a distribution down to it's minimum compnents and have a functioning linux system that takes only a few megabytes. You can even have only the kernel to boot the system. Of course it wouldn't be of much use, though That's why the distribution makers add software packages to the bundle in order to achieve the desired functionality for their Linux flavor/flavour (long story, if you search the Linux kernel mailing lists you'll get it).

 

About the 6 GB HDD, it's enough to try Linux but I think you'll need more space if you want to use it as your main OS

 

Good luck with your experiment! And as I said, if you need any help, just ask!

[HCSuperStores]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to getting me this far!

 

How far you ask, we'll I'll just tell you!

 

I'm up and running on Mandrake Community 10.0! My 6GB HD was plenty to get me going. I haven't been on the Windows side in a couple of days, but I haven't gotten a lot of sleep either trying to figure things out.

 

What's working?

Monitor (had an initial issue where I was stuck without GUI for a little while ... scary for a newbie!)

Keyboard, mouse

Internet access (browser - Mozilla, gFTP, IM - Kopete (Gaim can't access Yahoo for me), mail - Evolution)

Lots of other desktop-type software loaded.

I can see a start page at my "localhost".

 

I am still working through some issues though.

 

No sound - I have an older Creative Soundblaster AWE64 that the system didn't recognize

No printer - I might be completely out of luck for my Lexmark X6170. I do have an older Lexmark 3200 still here and I saw a driver for that in my travels

 

MySQL wont come up: ERROR 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

Trying to figure out where pages need to be loaded for the server to bring them up too. I think there's a whole server administration part that I'm going to need to get dirty on.

 

Over all I am very pleased with what I have available to me in such a short amount of time. The amount of software available is truly awesome. I even had an applicaton crash on me (it could be partially my fault) The system didn't blink. I still have access to my Windows partitions too ... so I can copy data/web files over at will.

 

If there are any hints fo get me through some of these issues, let me know. Even direction (instead of answers) is a cool thing. I'm in this for the long run and the ability to know where to find the answers I need is better than getting a handout.

 

Thaks again, especially Raul, for getting me this far! woooot

[schussat]

I'm up and running on Mandrake Community 10.0! My 6GB HD was plenty to get me going. I haven't been on the Windows side in a couple of days, but I haven't gotten a lot of sleep either trying to figure things out.

Hey, congratulations!

 

No sound - I have an older Creative Soundblaster AWE64 that the system didn't recognize

As far as I know, the AWE64 is supported fine. Have you run sndconfig as root? Also, occasionally sound devices get muted by default (don't ask me why); be sure to load up the volume control and doublecheck after you get the card set up.

 

No printer - I might be completely out of luck for my Lexmark X6170. I do have an older Lexmark 3200 still here and I saw a driver for that in my travels

Looks like your best bet will be with the 3200, as there appears to be a ready-to-go driver for it in CUPS.

 

MySQL wont come up: ERROR 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket

That's one I won't be much help on, but I'm interested to see how you solve it!

 

Enjoy -- it's a lot of fun to get this stuff up and running.

 

-Alan

[borfast]

First of all, I agree with Alan, I think it's much more fun to get your system running by figuring out certain things - as long as you don't need it to work "NOW" and the things you need to figure out are too hard to understand, of course

And it's a great learning experience!

 

HC, I'm glad you got this far! Don't thank me, thank yourself for taking the time to do it and having the patience to endure the difficulties

 

Gaim does have some problems with Yahoo! Messenger. Sometimes it can get to your account, sometimes it can't. Never quite understood why. If Kopete works and you need Yahoo!, then use it. There are some other Instant Messengers you can try, if you want. Just go to freshmeat.net and search for "instant messenger"

 

Now for the showstoppers:

 

The soundblaster should work without any problems. Mandrake 10 uses Kernel 2.6, meaning it is probably using ALSA as the sound backend, which supports AWE64. You can get more info about ALSA's supported soundcards here.

I'm not sure if Mandrake has sndconfig available but I remember seing a sound configuration thingy on Mandrake's control panel. Have you tried looking there?

 

Unfortunately, the printer is not suppoerted by CUPS

The 3200 is, but not the X6170

Not much you can do about this one, unless you want to wait for someone to write a driver for it, write it yourself or (recommended) write Lexmark and complain about the lack of a driver for your operating system.

 

The webpages should probably be located under /var/www/html/ but you should confirm it. The control panel probably has some section for the webserver, where you can see the webpages location on the filesystem.

 

The MySQL error is weird. Where are you getting it? Tell me more about it so I can try to help you out on that one.

Edited March 17, 2004 by TCH-Raul

[HCSuperStores]

Hi Raul,

 

Again the help I have received is just invaluable!!!! I'm so appreciative words cannot describe.

 

Yes, the satisfaction of getting things working is there. For me, I really think this is an important learning step. But here's the real thing, having the support from you and others has made it feel like I'm not doing it alone. For something this drastic (from my fiew) feeling like you have support gives you that extra boost in confidence to do somethingthing that you might not feel comfortable with on your own. I know I'm babbling a little ... but I don't want you, or anyone else who has helped, to think that I am not appreciative. Because I am deeply grateful!

 

Ok ... more details ...

 

I've used MySQL on my Win PC as a command prompt. I just would go to DOS and type MySQL and there I am! From there I would issue any SQL command, but mostly just to create databases.

 

I figured it had to work the same. I went to the shell as a user, typed MySQL, and then got the error I reported. I tried the shell as a root user. Same issue. I terminated KDE, logged out as a user, logged in as a root, tried again ... same error.

 

I haven't had the time to look into this particular error in any detail yet. I'm working towads that. Got to keep things going while I figure things out at the same time. 20 hour days!!!! But it will pay off.

 

Again, thank you so much. I'll look into the web server side and control panel access. I'm still getting familiar with this.

 

Talk with you later! Thumbs Up

[borfast]

Well, I'd say you have one less issue to worry about - this MySQL problem is really simple to solve

 

The problem is that you probably had the MySQL server starting automatically on Windows but that's not happening on Linux. I don't know why, because if Apache starts automatically (I'm assuming this, because you said you could get to a webpage by pointing your browser to localhost), MySQL should start automatically too. But again, I don't know Mandrake well enough to be sure about this.

 

Anyway, here's how to solve the problem. The MySQL server is a system service, so you need to start the corresponding service. You might have something for this on the control panel (this is the thing I like about MDK, it has almost everything integrated into one nice control panel) but if you don't, you can go to the shell, enter "su" followed by your root password and then enter "/sbin/service mysql start" or, if that doesn't work, try "/sbin/service mysqld start" (note the extra 'd'). When you want to stop it, instead of 'start', enter 'stop' at the end. You can also enter 'restart' to have it make you a cup of coffee... Self descriptive, right?

 

Hope this helps

Edited March 17, 2004 by TCH-Raul

[borfast]

I forgot the last part: once you have the MySQL server running, you can enter 'mysql' in a console to get into the MySQL client and work from there, just as you used to do on Windows.

[HCSuperStores]

Well things do progress!

 

I figured out the Mysql issue. In using the RPM with Mandrake, there was another MySQL package that needed to be installed.

 

Instantly I was able to get into MySQL as expected.

 

Feeling confident (overly at that) I had a thought: Wouldn't it be nice to get the "phpMyAdmin" thing working like we have here at TCH. A nice GUI interface to use with MySQL.

 

1) Downloaded using gFTP

2) Unzipped it via command line tar.

3) Set up parameters in the config file

4) Set password in MySQL

5) Brought it up!

 

Woohoo! Thumbs Up Thumbs Up Thumbs Up

 

It worked almost perfectly. Ok, I struggled with where to set the password for MySQL ... but only for a few minutes.

 

I still don't have sound let. I explored everthing I could on the Mandrake side just to be sure something wasn't missing. It's not. I'll work on that after I play around with phpMySQL.

 

Now ... to get a multi-user environment working!!!!

 

I'm having fun if you havn't picked that up!

[schussat]

Instantly I was able to get into MySQL as expected.

Now you're cooking! That plus installing PHPMyAdmin is excellent. It sounds like you're really figuring out how to navigate everything. Good to hear!

 

I still don't have sound let. I explored everthing I could on the Mandrake side just to be sure something wasn't missing. It's not.

Weird that it's still not working. Do you get any entry at all under the sound section of Harddrake? For my last couple of installs, sound has gone all right without any problems, so I'm trying to think back to when I had to take care of it by hand. On my old office machine, I had to set up sound via a specific modprobe command. I'll see if I can dig up any of the details -- though the specifics will vary, the general process might help out.

 

Glad you're having a good time!

 

-Alan

[HCSuperStores]

No sound, but still happy!

 

Yes, I looking into the "harddrake" configuration and it just doesn't list ANY sound devices even though I technically have 2 installed. One is a very generic board that probably doesn't register.

 

Just for comparison, the linux-on-a-disk CD that installs Knoppix still likes my soundcard just fine. I rebooted with the CD just to be sure that it works and it does.

bizar

 

 

Next tasks on my plate (putting sound asside):

 

.htaccess files (never had to bother with them before)

.shtml files (currently not being processed)

 

Bit by bit ... byte bu byte ... it's coming together.

 

I LOVE the fact that Linux recognized my Win partitions! I'll have to go back eventually to get old mail. But it's kept me from using windows for 3 days!

 

AND I just noticed that it does spell checking for me AUTOMATICALLY in this window that I'm typing in ... pretty cool!