Posted by Anonymous on October 28, 2011 at 7:36am
I think I've been spending way too much time staring at a installation screens, with the worst part being that so far none of them have worked. My Debian installation failed, so I just removed the Ubuntu Netbook edition and installed the full Ubuntu Desktop edition. I got as far as installing the Apache server but nothing else. The Virtual Box installation seemed to go pretty smoothly that was until I tried using it. Somehow the words "Fatal Error" are never a good sign. Oh, the joys of user error. :)
Comments
What host OS are you using?
I remember you said you want to get more experience with Linux/Debian, and installing/configuring is a great way to do that!
But to really offer help we need to know a few things:
Installing a virtual Liux server can be fun and powerful, but there are other easier ways to get Drupal running on your machine, like MAMP (for OS X), WAMP or XAMMP (for windows), and (easiest of all) Acquia Dev Desktop for Drupal.
Multiple installs
Hi Laken!
I have XAMPP on a Vista computer where I had my Drupal installation, that was of course until an error occurred and the only solution was to do a fresh install. Scott recommended Virtual Box, but for some reason it doesn't want to work. Then I have a mini-laptop in which I have been trying to install LAMP for 2 weeks, this was originally running the Ubuntu Netbook edition but it could never save to the /var/www folder.
I also don't seem to understand how to set up two drupal sites, one for module testing and one for actual work. I really appreciate the help!
How to run multiple Drupal sites on one machine
Aside from the discussion about whether or not you should run multiple Drupal sites on a single machine, there are a couple of ways to get there. First, you can spin up a new VirtualBox or other VM for each site. This, in my opinion, isn't running multiple Drupal sites on a single machine, it's getting multiple machines to run on your single piece of hardware. Second, you can install Drupal multiple times and either access Drupal from different paths under "localhost". For example, http://localhost/drupal-6.22 and http://localhost/drupal-7.9 and if you rename the folders you can get experimental with http://localhost/drupal-6.22-experimental etc. This is probably the most straight forward approach, but does leave a lot to be desired if you're actually trying to develop sites that will eventually live elsewhere.
Third, you can use Apache's VirtualHost directives in your httpd.conf files and some creative DNS or modifying /etc/hosts to get multiple instances of Drupal running with different local domains, http://d6.local and http://d7.local for example. And fourth you can use Drupal's built-in multisite capabilities to run multiple "sites" out of a single set of the Drupal code base.
My personal preference is to use a combination of the third and fourth options. I have multiple installations of Drupal on my machine and have set up some wildcard VirtualHost entries to help speed the process along. I have one main instance of Drupal 6 and one of Drupal-7. Then within these, for the most part, I set up multisites for any site that I'm going to be working on. It mimics how we have our production sites set up, so it works for me, but you could easily set up individual instances of Drupal for each sitea.
I did write up a little bit of this in a blog post. But it could probably use some clarification and expansion. Feel free to comment there or reply here and I'll see what I can answer.
_Erik
Apache
Thank you Erik! Your explanation made a lot of sense, I guess I was just confused and thought that I needed a different machine for each Drupal site. It seems that I was finally able to install Apache, Mysql and PHP in Ubuntu using version 11.10
Since I've been using the Terminal do my installation in Ubuntu, how do I my Drupal installation? Do I only use the Terminal or can I directly to where the file /var/www folder is located at?
Terminal lovers love Drush
If you're doing a lot by the command line, you should investigate Drush which is a command line interface to Drupal. Where you download and install Drupal depends on what type of VirtualHost configuration you use.
Come to meetup next Tuesday!
Ingrid, if you come to next Tuesday's Missoula Drupal meetup, you can get hands-on help with your Drupal installation.
Install-Fest
If you can attend the meet up next week, I'd be happy to help you out with getting things up and running.
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Jinx!
Jinx!
Drush
Thank you! Drush is such a great tool, I can't believe I didn't know that it existed.
Drupal downloads
When I'm downloading Drupal software, should I be downloading the "Recommended releases" or the "Development releases"? i.e. should I reinstall Drupal 7.8 or version 7.9 in XAMPP?
Depends
Normally the "Recommended" releases are the right choice. Sometimes, however, there are bug fixes in the Development Releases that make them desirable.
Read through any notes that may be on the project page for hints.
Drupal 7.9 is the most recent stable release version of Drupal core, but 7.9 isn't a security update from 7.8, so you won't need to rush to update. You will want to update at some point.
Here's a nice link about Drupal updates and upgrading from one version to another: http://drupal.org/upgrade
In particular, take a look at http://drupal.org/node/1223018 for some notes on going from 7.8 to 7.9.
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Thank you!
Drupal is finally starting to make more sense.
:-)
That's what I like to hear.
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse