Page 2 - Home Development Environment - should I use Apache/Linux?

And everyone should check out Onslaught's signature links to read about how the OSS world will prevail over the dotcom 'revolution'!

hehe I was reading through that 'so you want to hire a hacker' article again after I saw your sig... nice one...

There's a few other goodies here too: http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/hack/

Vaguely relevant to this thread

I just love these articles

This is interesting.

I was wondering why there are two pages for such a simple question and now I find out.

By the way,

Fataqui

We would agree that
1. You have 'broad mind'( not limited like Al).
2. You are great at designing network.
3. There are far better servers than IIS and Apache who performs best in real life instances,


if you can just give one evidence,
if you can just give name of server,
if you can just show us some real life application.

I agree that statstics are not measure of deciding what is best, but if you don't put up even name of what you are talking about it is out of competition for sure.

So dear Network Design expert,
Please do not go away from this post , come back and get guts to reply.I am really willing to know what you are knowing and I am not.

and I strongly belive that Al' post was no way off topic. He can certainly post about other's ppl' answer if its not understood/doubts about it.

and coming to the original problem
I use WinXP and I have downloaded VMWare.

have installed linux on that.

I do developmetn on windows only coz I can't do without EditPlus.

so how do I test my script,
I have bridged the guest Linux to my host Windows, so that Windows can see Linux' Apache server.

I copy my files there on Linux and check it out on Windows while running windows !!

I wonder if you are able to digest this but believe me, when you would see this thing in action, you would be surprised !!!!! it would be pleasant one, i can bet for that.


VMWare is one of the software which keeps me wondering about what a Man can do !!!! A TRUE kick *** software !!!!

JD

Hey JD - that sounds like an interesting setup you have there. Unfortunately my machines here (two P166, 32/48MB RAM) aren't too good running vmware.

What would be interesting would be to compare the speed of scripts served by apache running via vmware with the speed of scripts served by apache under win32.

I was very shocked when I moved from serving files from apache/w32 (ie calling scripts from the same machine) to moving the apache server onto another machine on network with linux on. It turned out the scripts ran on average over 200 times faster from linux over the LAN than from the same machine using win32/apache.

Also what you say about not being able to do without EditPlus - I would whole heartedly agree that windows is indispensible for building a 'modern' web site (ie that includes graphics and complex tables which must be reviewed from a gamut of browsers, including IE4+ and NS4+). However I say if you have an extra machine and can spare it (no matter how small), install *nix!!!

It really is worth the effort going linux on a separate machine. Just a couple of reasons why apache/linux gives you increased speed:

- because the server machine is dedicated to running only web services, script/file service speed improves

- because the software/OS on that machine is designed by software experts who design the software mainly for *themselves* first, others second, the software is minimal but extremely efficient and so runs faster whilst taking up less resources *POWER*

Scripts run 200 times faster ???????
Hm....I am not sure. I shall check it out.

Basically as I said I can't do without windows when I am writing my script. I would want editplus, dreamweaver, Winamp, and some **movies** to be played in the breaks.

I have got enough practice and idea that my script can run without a hitch on both windows and linux, but still one would like to check out them on linux. so I can't dual boot linux and windows and then check them out. it would be pain in ....

but VMWare lets me do everything !!!!
and at my home I am not concerned about resources too. I have got P III 800 with 256mb ram and it seems that both linux, windows run smoothly.

finally I deploy my each and every application on *Nix only.

btw munk I would say that you can get more RAM cause its really cheap now.

end of the story,
JD

Unfortunately upgrading RAM isn't an option, since it's a pentium based motherboard and I can only fit 4 simms in at one go and simms aren't around any more. I'll be building a new machine soon hopefully with at least 512mb ram, have to see what prices are like at the time.

My point in the last post was that if you can afford a small second hand machine (about £100 for a p233 64mb - including monitor!) then it can be fun to set up a machine dedicated as a *nix server, certainly with apache/mysql/php on, preferably with sshd on and maybe samba or NFS to access files easily from the windows machine. That way you can develop easily on the win machine with all the comforts of windows, whilst transferring and testing your files easily to the *nix machine and benefiting from the speed and efficiency that *nix provides.

The 200x speed improvement was based on moving from a windows 95 p166 48mb ram machine with apache/mysql/php installed (firepages 'package') to a linux mandrake 8.2 p166 32mb ram machine (default installation of apache/mysql/php via rpms). This was only on my setup and to be honest the win95 machine wasn't ideal for serving up webpages - even so I was pleasantly surprised at the speed increase when moving the server onto the linux machine.

Thanks everyone.

I think I now have a few stakes in the ground, and some decisions still to make.
I will use Windows as my development environment because I am used to it and am trying out tools such as Dreamweaver.
I have an old spare machine, so I will probably try and set that up with Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL just for the purpose of final test - like a 'Model Production Environment'.
(The reason for Linux/Apache is simply because that's what all the hosting companies seem to offer - if they all offered KWAGGY/Bloghead then I would have to go with that).

I am still not sure whether I should use Personal Web Server (which I already have) or Apache on my Windows(ME) development machine. Will it make any difference? If stuff runs OK under one is it bound to run OK under the other?

Thanks.

Hey... glad to hear you're gonna go for playing with linux on the other box... I'd highly recommend installing Linux Mandrake if you're new to linux - it's a total sinch to setup and configure, plus apache/php/mysql run fast as a fast thing (even on my p166 it's seriously fast, feels powerful;\). Download it for free from one of the ftp servers here: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3 or if you're on a slow modem you can find plenty of sites that sell the downloadable version very cheaply (£10 in UK, http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/cheap.html#Mandrake).

Anyways, highly recommended!

What you're saying about PWS/apache issue on windows - you say: 'The reason for Linux/Apache is simply because that's what all the hosting companies seem to offer' - why not go with apache on windows too since apache is the most popular web server on the net?


Good luck anyway...