setting up a web server- need some help?

[lockmac]

Hi there. I am a university student studying IT.

What I want to do is set up a server at home just for experimental purposes, such as learning how to set up and administer certain web services.

I want to run ColdFusion, PHP and ASP as well as a MySQL server. Just wandering what operating system would I use? I have been taught to believe that unix is the best server for this type of thing. Can someone recommend which I should use (which flavour of unix do you suggest?) and what other programs do i need for PHP, ASP and MySQL?

Any help appreciated. Thanks

 

[Nothinman]

Well for ASP you're pretty much stuck with Windows+IIS, Mono supports some ASP.Net but I don't know how complete it is yet. I've never had to install/configure ColdFusion but it supports a lot of platforms so as long as you can get the software and read the instructions you'll probably be fine.

Personally I'd go with Debian, installing Apache+PHP+MySQL will take about 5 minutes there. Then for ASP install Windows in VMWare.

 

[Brazen]

Here is some info on ASP on Apache. And I've never heard of any free versions of Coldfusion, so unless you want to spend some dough, you may be out of luck there.

Personally, I would bet you would be much better served by using either PHP or RubyOnRails with your Apache and Mysql. It depends on your goal, though. Do you want to learn a platform used by companies that are easily wooed by vendor-provided lunches and powerpoint presentations (ASP/Coldfusion), a platform used by almost every hosting provider and the majority of overall webservers (PHP), or a platform that is incredibly easy-to-learn and powerfull but used by almost nobody (RubyOnRails).

Also, I would personally use Ubuntu LTS Server over Debian. I think Ubuntu is easier-by-default, has a reputable company behind it (Canonical), and as a business user/admin it gives me warm fuzzy feelings knowing paid support is available from said company. But there is a strong case for either Debian or Ubuntu, and what you learn on one is easily transferable to the other. I would go with either one of those over anything else, and you couldn't PAY me enough to go with anything SuSe (just thought I would throw that out there FYI).

 

[George P Burdell]

If you want to give Apache/PHP/MySQL a try without installing them, you can try xampp, which can be unzipped and run out of the box.

 

[Brazen]

If you want to give RubyOnRails a try, you can use Flash Rails which is also just a download, unzip, and run. Delete the folder if you change your mind and nothing is left on your system.