[Wylug-help] Basic assistance in setting up a web server

[shaun laughey]

On Saturday 20 January 2007 15:09, John Egan (Oghmatic) wrote:
> Hi
>
> Please excuse me if this is the wrong place to ask, but I am based in Leeds
> and have been asked by a colleague to find someone who can advise or help
> me set up a remote hosted Linux webserver with php, MySQL and ffmpeg.  I
> hate to say it, but I have no experience of Linux at all, but I do know
> enough to believe that the above products would probably perform best on a
> Linux server and on a Gates special (MS).
>
> Can someone please drop me an email and let me know if I could enlist the
> assistance of a local person who will be able to talk me through the
> problems and pitfalls of setting up and managing a remote Linux web server,
> and if necessary help me overcome them.
>
>
> Best Regards
> John Egan

Hiya John,

I think you may be better off getting some professional help.

However here's my overview as to why going from a Windows to Linux world isn't 
as easy as a few emails on a mailing list.

Running and using Linux.....

The subjects you will need to cover in learning Linux and Free Open Source 
Software (FOSS) applications like Apache lie in quite a different paradigm to 
the M$ one. It's about choice not vendor lock in. It's configuration and 
customisation not GUI wizards (you can get them but I can't say if they are 
any good) and it's about discipline through standards either personal or 
industrial not our way or the highway.

It's a big subject. I've been using Linux and Unix systems most of my life (at 
least 16 years) and I still feel I've scratched the surface.

It can take people a long time to adjust and to some it's a breath of fresh 
air like finding that there is a completely different way to do things and 
suprise suprise it's actually better. To others this much freedom is 
abhorrent and to be stamped out. I know people in both camps and a lot 
between the two.

Perils...

A lot of software in the GNU/Linux/FOSS realm is fairly substandard, slapdash 
and buggy thats not to say M$ based stuff is any better but choosing software 
can sometimes be a little more fraught with danger as you sometimes have to 
make the call yourself or ask peer groups what they have used. Enterprise use 
isn't quite as well advertised or bandied about in the interests of 
shareholders like it is in the closed source world.

There are also best of breed programs too in Linux that M$ owners can just 
about run on their (IMHO) slow clunky unmitigated disaster of an OS so it's a 
case of identifying the wheat from the chaff and it takes a while to get used 
to doing that. In fact I'm astonished now how hard it must be to buy closed 
source software without access to bugtrackers, open/uncontrolled (by 
interested parties) mailing lists and IRC.

As for training....

Many of us on this list are professionals and earn a living using Linux with 
years of experience and certification behind them some of them in other 
realms too (M$, Solaris, Irix ...)

Just sticking a disk in and a quick "tick the apache, mysql and ffmpeg" boxes 
to install is the easy bit. 

Making them secure and working well is the bit that takes an appreciation and 
knowledge of the OS - firewalling, selinux, permissions, mysql tuning etc. In 
addition like M$ offerings there's a difference between a well configured and 
stable machine and the one you get by default. Just with Linux it's not as 
big a gap for some things.

I refactor applications and tune systems for a living and I see the same thing 
regularly with systems failing because of a knowledge gap. For example Xeon 
3ghz systems with 4gb of RAM running a maximum of 40 users on plain vanilla 
RHEL installs and poor php/mysql designs achieving 4000 users after 
refactoring and tuning.

Unfortunately for many companies it's can be too late and this means expensive 
legal hassles and unhappy clients.

Summary.... 

If there's money involved in this I'd say get a Linux contractor for the 
install and configuration - it's a lot less hassle and try and get some 
training and experience in administration.

In Leeds we have gbdirect.

	http://training.gbdirect.co.uk/courses/linux/

However if you want to use this to skill up then get a linux introduction 
book, an install disk or two from SUSE or Mandriva or Fedora and just go for 
it and be prepared to wipe the machine a few times. Google is your friend 
with this method as is Linux Answers and the Distro's wiki's. Then get some 
training before doing this commercially. Your client will thank you.

Shaun Laughey.