As part of my ongoing self education of the internet and computers in general, I have just installed the open source operating system, Linux, onto my old Athlon 1Ghz pc. I chose Ubuntu (version 7.04) as I was advised that it is a very “newbie” friendly distribution. It was a breeze to install, there were no hardware issues, even though the pc is about 6 years old, and comes with the Firefox web browser ready installed, so the internet is available immediately.
The plan is, with the help of an IT friend, to learn how to set up a home web server. I know that I need to install Apache, MySQL and PHP (i.e. the rest of L.A.M.P. – L being Linux) but know little else. I will blog my progress here, and hopefully this will eventually provide a simple step by step guide to how to set up a Linux web server at home.
If all goes according to plan, I will be able to save on the month hosting fees that I currently pay. What with the arrival of my baby son, I need to save wherever I can, so hopefully the old pc with help me save another 10 quid (GBP) a month.
As I am totally new to computing, I need to find an open source control panel for the LAMP installation, plus any other GUI that will mean that I spend as little time as possible typing into a terminal box! There is probably a plethora of other things I need to learn, so I will keep you updated as I go.