apache or lamp or tomcat... my linux hates them all

[Verdagon]

Hey everyone, my mac recently broke, and I had to scramble to find a different way to get my coding done. I want to stay on unix and I had a windows machine at home, so I set it up to dual-boot to ubuntu 8.04 desktop edition. I just spent about 6 hellish hours trying to get things to work, but linux keeps coming up with random error messages everywhere in the setup process. Path variable errors, gcc errors, java reinstall errors, nothing works. This is a clean install of linux, I would think installing these things would be easier, but no, linux apparently hates me.

On my mac I had this nifty program called MAMP, which handled it all for me, clean and easy. I had heard of something called LAMP so I investigated, but no such thing exists, its just an idea--not a program like MAMP was. The closest thing was ubuntu server edition, but I already installed desktop edition.

So my question is, does anyone know of something for linux that will handle this all for me, like MAMP did for my mac? If there isn't, I might as well scrap linux and go buy a mac to use while my other one's in repair.

- Evan

[bretticus]

I have an Ubuntu server (desktop provides the same packages in this case.) I installed Apache, MySQL, and PHP. I didn't have to compile anything (gcc errors?) It was all available through APT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool). It's a little more difficult than say, MAMP, because LAMP is not an product, it's an acronym for a combination of services and software (Linux Apache MySQL PHP: See a pattern here?) Which, by the way, is where the acronym MAMP, WAMP (you guessed it...Mac or Windows) came from in the first place. To make a development environment for alternative platforms (Mac and Windows) some software developers have made installable packages to facilitate setting up Apache, MySQL, and PHP. However, the "real deal" is almost always Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Linux (guess what the 'L' in LAMP stands for yet?) So if you feel the need to part with gobs of money, buy a new Mac. However, with a little bit of direction (http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_debian_lamp_server), and, with the benefit of discovering how to really administer Apache or MySQL (without a GUI) you might just save yourself some major cash.

[Verdagon]

w00t, apt worked perfectly. thanks man, youre my savior.