Over the past years I have always been in an environment where servers and Linux needs were the responsibility of others. This is nice in many ways. Ultimately I turned into a complainer, but this was done with the interest of our sites running smooth. I hope you understand… the many Net Admins…
Regardless, Linux and the command line was always a little out of my scope. I knew I could do it. I grew up on DOS command line. I lived off of programs like X-Tree. My skills go back much further, but that is not the topic.
So the recent weeks 2 issues have come up that needed to be addressed in the digital world. First my own development (multiple interpretations) has seen the need for a more robust local development environment. Second is an upcoming workload that truly requires my own functioning server and environ.
So what is a technologist to do?
I swapped my file sharing computer (down grade) and grabbed the (still good) P4 box and put a Linux server on board. Jumping directly into the deep end, I bypassed the “desktop” versions and went right to the core.
My distro of choice ended up being Ubuntu server. I started with CentOS. This distro is a good version for the Red Hat people, but ultimately I did not feel like burning 6 ISO CDs to get this app running 100%. It looked like very nice but no benefit to me.
I have a friend who is rather active with Ubuntu. Having recently had a positive experience on Ubuntu I decided to look over the site. Now at this point in time I am judging the product by the support, approachability, and quality of the website. Not necessarily knowing to much about what I want (besides the standard request of a LAMPPP environment) I look at the site and consider if I can hang out on the pages all day for a week.
Ultimately I found the Ubuntu site easy to read and navigate. The primary support and peripheral support is outstanding and this made the decision for me.
As for the install. Where I stand right now is simple, here is a quick outline:
- LAMPPP environ working
- Connecting and developing
- DNSMASQ installed and working with .home extension
- No major problems
- CVS installed and scheduled for removal - I am just NOT that crazy
- To Do: Subversion
- To Do: increase performance of virtual hosting (only able to get one site at a time)
- To Do: get Samba dialed in (low priority)
- To Do: get Komodo integrated into the CVS (subversion) - with success I will buy the new 5.0 IDE
All in all - here’s the deal - Linux works. It works very well. It works well enough to scare the hell out of the biggies. I spent all of 3 whole days and I feel pretty comfortable on the command line and understanding how the basics work. I chose VI(M) as the editor to learn. So far I am really impressed.
Now don’t get me wrong, this stuff is really strange. This is an absolute example of programmers getting the run of things. Those of you who work with programmers (not as programmers) will understand.
Well, I am off to get back on the command line. Best of luck.
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