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Tried installing Wordpress today on my Ubuntu and gave up after Step Two. I tried. I really did.

I surfed the website and read The Famous 5-Minute Install only to realize the wisdom of my predecessors when they said it was more like The Famous 5-Hour Install.

Step 1: Download and Extract 

First of all, I didn’t know how to find where MySQL was and even Wen had to go through a series of convoluted command prompts in the Terminal screen to find out where it was located (/var/www). It was so convoluted that he refused to tell me how he did it. Then I downloaded Wordpress and extracted the package by typing "tar -xzvf wordpress.tar.gz" in the Terminal. Next, I typed "sudo mv wordpress /var/www", entered my password and Voilia! the file was moved to the same folder where MySQL was located.

Random Tip: Command prompt "cd ~" returns you to home directory

Step 2: Create the Database & User

I decided to use phpMyAdmin since that was recommended by JP. Wen advised me to download the gzip file from The phpMyAdmin Project site and repeat the steps I did with the wordpress file; move it to the "/var/www" folder. I managed to do that in a couple of minutes but immediately went back to being stumped.

According to the directions, I was supposed to see a dropdown menu appear magically on the left of the screen. That didn’t happen so after staring blankly and praying that the dropdown would magically appear, I decided that it was more efficient to check with Wen. He told me to open a browser and type "localhost", then click on phpMyAdmin (not before noting that the file name was rather long and that I may want to rename it).

After some hocus pocus getting more help from Wen, I finally saw the page with a Database dropdown. I proceeded to create a new database and add a new user. Everything was fine for about two minutes until I reached this step:

3. Return to the Privileges screen and click the Check privileges icon on the user you’ve just created for WordPress. In the Database-specific privileges section, select the database you’ve just created for WordPress under the Add privileges to the following database dropdown. The page will refresh with privileges for that database. Click Check All to select all privileges, and click Go.

It did not make any sense simply because whenever I tried to check on the user, it would delete the user and I’d have to repeat "add a new user" a few times before I turned my head to look despondently at Wen. Actually, I think I just sorta wailed his name. He walked over, took a look and told me to ignore those remaining steps and move on to "Setting up wp-config.php".

That was when I decided to stop because it was just taking way too much time.

The course so far has been extremely successful in making me feel stupid. I probably need to do a lot more reading up but for now, most of the technical terms just do not make much sense. The good news is it’s making me appreciate my personal geek even more.

L is for Linux (Ubuntu)

Allocated = 6.5GB | Actual Available = 5.6GB | Used = 1.8GB | Free = 3.8GB

To install A.M.P. on Ubuntu:

Estimated Time: Approximately 1/2 hour 

1. Select Applications on the Ubuntu screen and click on "Add/Remove"
2. Click on the ‘Advanced’ button. The Synaptic Package Manager will appear and request for your system admin password (if any)
3. Search for the application or program you wish to install (e.g. Apache, MySQL and PHP)
4. Rinse and repeat the above three steps for each of the A.M.P. because each one has its set of packages to install and I found that the packages don’t all install together so you have to ignore some of the ‘warning’ pop-ups. See illustration below.

While installing the packages, the following warning will probably could appear

 Select Yes, and it will install the programs that can be installed before showing you the next warning similar to the image below.

 Select OK and then the packages that did not install will remain as checked (installed ones appear as a colored box). Apply/Install again until you get all the checked boxes installed with the following message below.

Below are screen images of the A.M.P. packages I installed on Ubuntu. I was fortunate to have my personal geek giving me advise on what files to look out for. For example, the ‘Apache 2 module for MySQL authentication’ is really only necessary for users relying on multiple servers to retrieve passwords (such as porn sites). Also, Ubuntu has a neat function where it automatically provides related packages. For example, when I selected Apache 2, Ubuntu immediately selected a list of about 5-7 more other packages that were related and all I had to do was to Mark for Updates.

A is for Apache 

M is for MySQL 

P is for PHP 

Expected Duration: Approximately 20 minutes 

Immediately after the setting up VMWare Server on my laptop, I proceeded to start my virtual machine from the Nero-burned CD copy of Ubuntu. The laptop defaulted to boot from the CD so I had to wait till the Ubuntu screen popped up before selecting ‘Install’.

Notes 

1. Hold down ‘Ctrl-Alt’ to switch between the host and guest operating system - this is very helpful for moving your mouse between the two systems. Then press F11 to view the selected operating system in Full Screen.
2. The installation process will include an option that says "Erase entire disk" or "Manually Partition Disk". As scary as erasing an entire disk may sound, that is actually the appropriate step to take.
3. After installation is complete, restart the machine. Ubuntu CD should pop out automatically during the rebooting process so do not worry about removing the CD before clicking restart.
4. Install software updates - For some reason, ‘libmagick9′ refused to install along with the three other updates so I continued with the updates that would install. Later, I was given the option to update libmagick9 and this time it was successful.

Voila!

Now on to Apache 

Installing VMWare Server

Running a virtualization program typically takes about 6 to 8GB of space so after cleaning up my laptop, I had about 21GB left and decided it was time to install VMWare Server on it.

Expected duration = approximately 10 minutes

I clicked on the execution file and several clicks later, a warning was given that Microsoft Internet Information Server, a program required by the VMWare Management Interface, is not properly installed on my laptop. Since I do not have XP Pro installed (which gives you the option to install Microsoft IIS), I selected the option of installing without the Management Interface functionality. I also found an excerpt from here regarding these two programs:

The VMware Management Interface is hosted in Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS). In order to maintain security and still be able to use the management interface, normal IIS security best practices should be followed. VMware recommends you:

• Ensure the host operating system is always kept up to date with security patches.
• Consider using IP address restrictions to limit who can access the management interface.
• Do not host other Web sites on the GSX Server host machine.
• Remove all Web, FTP and SMTP services listed in the IIS Manager, with the exception of the VMware Management Interface Web site.
• Consider following Microsoft’s published IIS security baseline checklist, located at www.microsoft.com/technet/security/chklist/iis5cl.asp.

Creating a New Virtual Machine on Local Host

Expected Duration = approximately 5-10 minutes 

1. After installation, I clicked on the VMWare Server icon on my desktop and initiated the next step - Creating a new virtual machine on the local host; my laptop.
2. I selected Linux as the Guest operating system and then Ubuntu from the list of drop-down options.
3. Selected ‘Use Network Address Translation (NAT)’ which simply means "
4. Selected the 6GB (typically 6 to 8GB) as my allocated disk space because I do not plan on running space-intensive programs or storing large files of music/videos.
5. Machine proceeds to create disk space

Voila!

The first commandment of this class: Back up. Constantly.

(Usually via an external hard-drive)

In view of the above, I’ve decided to spend the evening cleaning up the 48GB of used space on my laptop before taking that momentous step of no return into opensource world - installing VMWare Server and running Ubuntu on my laptop. I plan to:

1. Run Disk Cleaner
2. Go through my files with the naked eye and delete all the seldom-used and super-old files (e.g. I have notes and assignments from 15 of my undergrad courses)
3. Run Defrag
4. Backup onto external drive
5. Do a restore to see if the backup works Did not do this since I only saved the data in an external hard drive and don’t have an actual backup/restore program.

Since I’ve decided on using the virtualization option to run my LAMP stack, it was now down to deciding between Parallels or VMWare. So… $50? or free? The practical side of me rationalized that $50 was a small amount compared to the sense of well-being Parallels should give me as a commercial product with a customer service department. On the other hand, the class is about utilizing the world of open source products. Also, my personal geek husband was confident enough to install the free program (VMWare) on his spanking new Vaio so I figured my 2-year-old laptop could take the risk program too.

In the meantime I’ve downloaded VMWare Server and will be testing it out on my laptop. At the same time, one classmate is testing out VM Player while another is trying out the trial version of Parallels.

I brought my copy of Nero-burned Ubuntu CD to the Malloy Hall Computer Lab where another classmate was just completing his own hijacking. Our class expert, Tapan, was also in the Lab so I purposefully conveniently took the empty seat beside him. That proved to be a wise move.

Step 1: Loaded CD and it offered me the option to install instead of rebooting. Tapan said that the pc was not automatically rebooting so I would need to restart the PC.

Step 1a: Restarted PC and hit F2 to change settings so that it would reboot from CD.

Step 2: Restarted PC again and this time, Ubuntu was initiated.

Step 3: Posed beside hijacked PC as evidence of completed assignment.

Step 4: Took a snapshot of Ubuntu at work on the hiajcked PC and played around with it a little. Discovered that Ubuntu has a whole list of games like mahjong etc but resisted the urge to play because I had to go off to another class up on the hill.

Step 5: Exited from Ubuntu and restored hijacked PC 

Step 5a: Unfortunately both Brad and I ran into a minor glitch where the PC hung with the above screen showing after releasing the CD to us. My first instinct was to run away as fast as possible check with Tapan and he reassured us that all we needed to do was to restart the PC. We did just that and the PC was restored to the usual Windows operating system.

LAMP stands for (L)inux (A)pache (M)ySQL (P)hp. More specifically:

Linux refers to the free open source version of the operating system, Unix. Unix was originally meant for big machines; opposite from Windows. It involves creating a lot of small parts that interact with each other but is relatively user-hostile. Windows XP is based on Unix. Mac OS10 is a variant of Unix. Many people argue that Linux is superior to Windows because it is good not just on the client-side (individual systems), it also scales beautifully and extends to even the biggest web servers. Unfortunately, there is little to no regulation which resulted in numerous different distros (distributions or ‘versions’ to the non-techies). According to distrowatch, the top three distros are Ubuntu, openSUSE, and Fedora.

Our assignment due in two days, beside creating a simple website, includes downloading Ubuntu, burning it onto a disk and then hijacking a pc on campus. Although this is definitely illegal may not be legal, JP reassured us that nothing could go seriously wrong. Even if something did go wrong, we should run away and act innocent. But if that failed, we could just say it was an assignment given by our invincible tenured Professor.

Before downloading Ubuntu, we needed to decide how we want to get it up and running based on the following options:

1. Using an old laptop
2. Dual boot; running off a desktop CD where part of the hard drive is used for the second operating system. However, there have been known cases where the hard drive space used becomes permanently occupied and special software is needed to retrieve the space.
3. Using a virtualization software such as VMWare (free version available here) or Parallels.

Since we’d just sold both our old laptops after hanging onto them like pack-rats for the last 2 years, option 1 was not feasible. Option 2 seemed too risky because my laptop is my life only machine. That left option 3 and I’m inclined towards Parallels because nothing is too expensive for my baby laptop.

Downloading Ubuntu took about 2-3 hours (was working on other stuff so didn’t pay attention to the time) while burning (via Nero) the cd took maybe 10 minutes. Now I just need to hijack me a pc (using option 2) and then look further into using VMWare or Parallels to run Ubuntu on my laptop.