Yet Another Reason to Learn Linux – Linux Certifications
By Levi Reiss

There are currently four programs that enable people to become certified as Linux Systems Administrators. These programs are offered by the Computing Technology Industry Association, the Linux Professional Institute, the Novell Corporation, and Red Hat, Inc. The first two are professional industry associations whose certification programs do not depend on any specific Linux distribution. Novell and Red Hat Linux certifications are closely associated with their popular Linux distributions. Should you wish to prepare for either of these two certifications you will definitely need access to their Linux version.

What’s involved in obtaining a Linux Certification? You must pass one or more extensive tests that demonstrate your prowess in dealing with the typical and some atypical problems faced by Linux systems administrators. We’ll take a closer look at the CompTIA Linux+™ Certification, the one often recommended as the first certification for people new to Linux. This certification does not apply to any specific Linux version. The test is designed to validate the knowledge of individuals with a minimum of six to twelve months of practical Linux experience. According to the Computing Technology Industry Association, professionals achieving the CompTIA Linux+ certification can explain fundamental management of Linux systems from the command line, demonstrate knowledge of user administration, understand file permissions, software configurations, and management of Linux-based clients, server systems, and security. Many of these functions are available on Damn Small Linux.

The Linux+ certification is a basic, entry-level certification for Linux system administrators. It is intended for people with six-months experience installing, operating and maintaining Linux operating systems. To achieve Linux+ certification, candidates must pass the 98 question Linux+ exam which covers seven areas: Planning and Implementation; Installation; Configuration; Administration; System Maintenance; Troubleshooting; and Identify, Install and Maintain System Hardware. This multiple-choice exam costs about $232 and is a good starting point for those who want to continue with other Linux certifications including those from Novell and Red Hat.

Why would anybody want to start preparing Linux certification on a limited version of Linux? The answer is simple – certification is not to be taken lightly. Don’t make a major financial and time investment unless you know that you really want to be certified and that you possess the required skill set. It’s not hard to find schools that promise you success in Linux certification and in any of their course offerings. But Linux certification may not be for you. Don’t make a major certification investment only to find that it wasn’t what you had in mind. Work your way through my tutorials including the suggestions for going further. Get your hands on a variety of Linux books. I would start with books designed for learning Linux and for running Linux systems before working with Linux certification books.

Don’t be satisfied with running computer exercises in your mind, and nodding your head at the appropriate times. To succeed you must do the exercises on a computer running Linux. Since installation is a component of all Linux Certification exams don’t stint on installing several versions of Linux on your computer. An external USB hard drive is not very expensive. Try to make friends with someone who knows better than you how to do things. Ask a lot of questions. And good luck!

And while you’re working on your certifications take a look at some of Damn Small Linux’s other advantages in our final article in this series.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com – He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Linux For PS3 – What Do You Need For a Complete Installation?

By Munyaradzi Chinongoza

So you want to know how to install Linux for PS3, huh? Well, before you can even start the whole installation process, they are some things that you need to get started. These are easily available online and your local electronic store.

What you have to do is format your hard drive. Before you do that its always a good idea to backup everything on your console. That way you can easily restore the old settings if you encounter problems with the installation.

You can use a simple 4 gigabyte USB pocket drive to backup your files on. Just go to your local electronics store and you can get one for less than $20. Once you have installed your Linux, you can always delete the files on it and use it for other things in the future.

You also need a USB keyboard and mouse, because you can not go through the Linux setup with a game controller. An ISO image burner is needed for your Ubuntu Linux software. This is the only format that your PS3 recognizes. Do not worry just like the software required you can download this online for free. Simply do a quick search on Google, and you should have many options to choose from.

The files are going to take a long time to download, sometimes as long as 2 hours. Once you have downloaded the files, the installation process also takes as long as two hours to complete, so make sure you have a lot of spare time. I recommend maybe even doing this overnight so you do not have to sit around and watch the status bar for hours.

Next, discover how to install Linux for PS3 safely and effectively without voiding your warranty using our special Linux for PS3 installer software. It’s all there for you at our blog: http://ps3linux101.blogspot.com/

Running Linux On The PS3
By Marcus Creyton

One of the great features of the Play Station 3 is that it can use Linux, which means that PS3 owners can customize their system and get lots more out of it. Gaming consoles are usually designed so that foreign systems can’t run on them, but the PS3 goes in the total opposite direction, allowing an experienced Linux user to personalize their system. Most gaming systems are “locked” so that other systems can’t be run, so PS3 is unconventional in allowing this. The only thing you can’t do on the PS3 is run accelerated graphics.

PS3 isn’t the first system to allow Linux. The xBox also has this feature, but the PS3 differs in a few ways. First off, the PS3 is more powerful. In addition, the xBox requires a certain chip to run Linux, whereas the PS3 can run it without. In fact, it’s totally free to run Linux on the PS3.

Some of the things you can do with Linux on your PS3 include:

-Use your Play Station like a PC, with a keyboard and mouse. Not all PC programs will run on the PS3, at least not yet, but Linux enables you many options.

-Run your own operating system. This is a boon to those who want to personalize their system.

-Use the internet. You can surf the web on your PS3 with an internet browser such as Firefox.

-Use office software. Although, it’s been reported that Windows doesn’t run well on the PS3. However, in the future, Microsoft could make a version of Windows that can run on the PS3. The rumor mill is buzzing, but there is no official word about this.

-Run MAME and other kinds of emulators. This means you can play all your favorite games from yesteryear on your brand new shiny Play Station 3.

-Play different types of media, such as DVDs, ROMs and CDs. Running Linux, you can watch movies or listen to music on your PS3.

-Connect to network shares. This feature allows you to save and retrieve files on another server, thus saving your memory.

The only problem with getting Linux on your PS3 is that it’s difficult to install and hard to use. Right now, it’s pretty much the domain of experienced programmers and hobbyists. Hopefully, in the future there will be a more user-friendly interface for running Linux on your gaming console. Since PS3 came out, most programmers have used Fedora Core to run Linux on their PS3′s, but there is a new system called Yellow Dog which is designed specifically for use with PS3. Yellow Dog is highly recommended and gaining popularity.

Still, the best thing about Linux is it’s free. All you need is a PS3, the proper cables, a USB mouse and keyboard, a USB flash drive and some other gear to make installation smoother… ok, so it’s not really free, but Linux itself is! If you’ve used Linux before, it may not be so tough to install. There is a variety of websites out there with tips for installation and most recommend Yellow Dog. You can also find ideas on how to run Linux on gaming forums.

Marcus Creyton writes on game console systems. He is a PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii enthusiast. For information, guides, cheats on PS3, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 go here: http://gameconsolekingdom.com

5 Linux VPS Performance Tips
By Christopher Pace

As a freelance Linux consultant, many of my clients are often interested in making their VPS (Virtual Private Server) as responsive as possible. Since VPS servers by nature have somewhat limited system resources (often less than 1 GB of RAM), getting the best VPS performance can be a crucial part of running a successful server. To make matters worse, most clients assume that the VPS host has already optimized their server- which simply isn’t true (even Rackspace, a wonderful VPS host, doesn’t do this). Therefore, I’ve written this article as a brief introduction to some of the more common ways to get the best performance from a VPS.

Tip #1: Disable system services
The top way to increase your VPS performance is to disable any system services that are not necessary. Services that are never used will still use up valuable RAM and CPU time, and also possibly allow your server to be attacked remotely. If you don’t need these services, why have them? Manage the startup scripts that start these services at boot time, and disable them.

Tip #2: Configure MySQL properly.
One of the more common ways to increase the available RAM (or to allocate more RAM to MySQL) is to configure the MySQL cache sizes. If your MySQL server instance is using too much memory, decrease the cache sizes. Likewise, if MySQL gets bogged down with large requests, increase the MySQL cache.

Tip #3: Configure Apache properly.
With Apache 2.0, many system administrators and clients alike have become confused as to the proper configuration of the Apache worker threads. Check how much memory Apache is using, and adjust the StartServers and MinSpareServers directives as needed to free up more memory.

Tip #4: Clean up your modules!
Without exception, there will always be modules or features that are enabled in memory hungry server software packages (such as Apache) that simply are not needed. Take a look at the configuration files for Apache, and decide if you need FrontPage support, or some of the other extra modules that ship with the VPS software packages. Disabling unnecessary modules or plugins will decrease the system memory that server software such as Apache requires, which will give you more resources for the software that needs it!

Tip #5: Disable control panels.
Let’s face it, everyone loves the more popular control panels, such as Cpanel, Plesk, Webmin, and phpMyAdmin. Heck, I’ve even written tutorials on how to use some of these control panel software packages. However, disabling these software packages frees up quite a bit of resources- sometimes as much as 120 MB of RAM! Sometimes the best solution is to disable these control panels until you actually need them- then they can be turned on via a PHP script (albeit somewhat insecure), or via a command entered at a shell prompt.

These 5 tips should decease the amount of RAM that your VPS uses by as much as 30-40%, which might save you quite a bit of money per month. Since most providers start out their VPS plans at systems with 256MB of RAM (and upgrades from there are expensive, often costing $40/month for an additional 256 MB), optimization of a VPS server is a crucial step. In addition, these 5 tips can be performed by a talented system administrator or consultant in typically less than two hours, which can mean a return on investment after only two or three billing cycles. What you do with the extra money saved is your business- you’ve earned it!

Christopher J. Pace is a freelance Linux consultant who has worked with Linux since 2001. Currently, he provides remote Linux consulting services for sick servers.

Free Linux Games – Part 1
By Levi Reiss

Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But what if you are not interested in becoming a computer nerd; can this software still be useful to regular people? The answer is a resounding yes; you can make use of this tiny operating system whether or not you want to learn the sometimes gruesome details of operating systems. This article presents several free games that are immediately available once you have downloaded and installed Damn Small Linux.

To access these games either click on the DSL button in the lower-left hand corner or on the Apps icon toward the top of the screen. Then open the Games: there are eleven; Canfield, Freecell, Golf, Mastermind, Minesweeper, Pegged, Slide_Puzzle, Solitaire, Taipei, Thornq, and Xtris and Taiedit which is not a game, but a game editor. We will examine the first six games in this article saving the rest of them for a companion article. As with any gaming systems, be careful not to get addicted.

Canfield is a relatively complicated single-deck solitaire card game. If you are not familiar with this game you’ll have to go to a source such as Google to find out how to play it. There is no help function. And sometimes the cards move fast, too fast to learn what is happening if you don’t know the game.

Freecell is a relatively complicated single-deck solitaire card game. I think that it’s easier to win than Canfield but maybe that’s because I am an ex-semi-Freecell-addict. It’s a lot easier to get addicted to Freecell on Windows because their version includes a seed number that lets you replay it. There is no such seed number in this version of Freecell.

In spite of its name, Golf is yet another card game one that is fairly well known. For more information about this game access http://www.delorie.com/store/ace/docs/golf.html

Mastermind is a game in which you use a mouse to drag colors from the palette (on the left) to the empty cells in the guess row. When the four cells in the guess row are full, right-click on the right of the screen to see how you did. There will be one black peg for each cell that is the correct color, and one white for a color that is not in the correct sequence. Keep going and you can eventually figure out all the colors in the row. If that’s your thing.

Some people will remember Minesweeper from the days of Windows 3.1. The goal is to clear a field of mines by clicking on a square that has no mines and right-clicking on a mined square to deactivate it. The screen indicates how many mines are adjacent to a square that has been deactivated or clicked on. One false move and you lose. When you start the game you can choose from four levels by enter 1 (the easiest), 2, 3, or 4. I vaguely recall that Windows 3.1 gave me more options, but frankly Damn Small Linux’s Minesweeper is a good time waster.

Pegged is a field of thirty penguins and thirty-one spaces. Initially one space is empty. A move consists of one Penguin jumping over another generating an additional empty space. You win if at the end of the game there is a single penguin. You really win if the solitary penguin is in the center square. Some would say that you really, really win if you close the Games menu and get back to work.


Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Free Linux Games – Part 2
By Levi Reiss

Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But it’s also great for playing games. This article presents several free games that are immediately available once you have downloaded and installed Damn Small Linux.

To access these games either click on the DSL button in the lower-left hand corner or on the Apps/ icon toward the top of the screen. Then open the Games: there are eleven. A previous article discussed several. Now we will look at Slide_Puzzle, Solitaire, Taipei, Thornq, and Xtris and Taiedit which is not a game, but a game editor. As with any gaming systems, be careful not to get addicted.

Do you remember a hand-held non-electronic game in which there were fifteen moveable tiles and sixteen squares? By moving the tiles correctly you could reconstitute a series of numbers. Slide_puzzle is similar but even more challenging. First you load an image, a graphics file such as a jpg file. I didn’t have one readily available so I opened Firefox went to google images and downloaded into the /home/dsl directory the first crayfish image that Google offered me. Then I loaded it into the game which chopped into into pieces to be reassembled. Left-click on a tile to slide it into the adjacent empty space. Right-click to see the original image. If you are really good you won’t have to take a peek at the original image. It helps if you have chosen an image that’s easy to reconstitute. I don’t recommend crayfish.

Solitaire is the good-old Klondike solitaire card game. While testing it for this article I did win twice in a row and came close the third time. This is the solitaire that I remember as a kid. Watch out, it’s moderately addictive.

Taipei is a very addictive game in which you try to remove pairs of corresponding tiles. Of course if a tile is covered by another tile you must first remove the covering tile. To find out if a tile may be removed right-click on it. If it changes colors it may be removed by clicking on its available partner. The partner tile is usually a copy (9 and 9, Heart and Heart) but any direction tile may be paired with any direction tile, and any color tile may be paired with any color tile. The numbers in the lower left hand corner of the screen indicate the number of remaining tiles and the number of tiles that are presently removable. In one game I started with 144 and 12. By judiciously removing two tiles I went to 142 and 15. I lost that game, like I lose most of the time. If the rules sound a bit complicated, they are. But you can learn by playing. And you can always press the Backspace key to undo your latest tile removal. The last time I played I was blocked, pressed the Backspace key, and went on to win. Some would say beginner’s luck. The instructions claim that every game can be won. I don’t believe it.

Taiedit lets you modify the game of Taipei. Good luck, this application looks moderately sophisticated.

Thornq is yet another solitaire card game. For more information about this game access delorie.com/store/ace/docs/thornq.html

You may not believe me, but I won this game without knowing how to play it. Beginner’s luck. The point is that Damn Small Linux offers a wide variety of solitaire card games. The final game offered with the system is xtris, a version of Tetris, the game in which you arrange falling blocks. This version offers a few controls including the possibility of playing several games at once.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Linux Web Hosting – Know What Makes it So Acceptable
By Anand Maheshwari

When you figure out the requirement to form a website, you will also have to zero out which web hosting firm to select. There are several platforms which you are open to make your pick from. The most famous amongst them is Linux Web Hosting. Linux hosting is taken to be as an alternate for making use of technology based on Microsoft Windows for working a website. Linux, an open source system was designed subsequent to Unix. This suggests that Linux is absolutely free, which a factor is considered by some people while making a choice. Apart from being free, it is also taken as extremely steady even in between long-lasting multitasking. Its flexibility, portability as well as power make it more credible in usage.

Other factor which contributes in making Linux Web Hosting a hit among the users is that the distribution cost is very small. With this you also avail free applications to assist the server run swiftly and consistently. Some of these applications you will also very well acquainted with such as HTTP server, File Server, FTP, DNS server among various others. With the technology of PHP, it is able to produce web pages having dynamic content and is also visually attractive. Such pages can change in terms of appearance as well as content. This is mainly keeping in consideration the interest of the person watching it has to so something like getting a form filled. Another most important advantage that plays a crucial role is that it is extremely easy in terms of its scalability. The provider of Linux based services offers practically a website, small as well as large as per your needs.

The system of data base which is used by Linux web hosts for varied websites is MySQL. Python, the programming language that is much valued by the programmers is also used in Linux hosting. It is comparatively refined and at the same time is very simple to learn too. It often makes use of words commonly used in English unlike other programming languages which make use of symbols.

It also renders you with the flexibility to make alterations and check them instantly without even making those changes everlasting. Extensible Markup Language, abbreviated as, XML is another technology made use by the Linux Web hosting. It is an extremely flexible way of regulating the information that contributes in formation of a website. With HTML, the previous system that was used every information piece was marked mainly for manifestation. With XML, this phenomenon has undergone a change and now you can use any kind of marker that pleases you. The owner of the website can now manage the website in their own way with XML. With Linux web hosting you can own all these benefits and mould them according to your needs.

Anand is a webmaster for Web Hosting India visit: hosting.b4uindia.com

How You Can Get Cheap Dedicated Hosting
By Erik Lenisen

Cheap dedicated hosting is provided by a number of web hosting companies throughout the US and Canada as well as Europe and Asia. It doesn’t matter where your hosting company is located from a technical point of view, other than that fact that you may want to deal in your own currency. So if you are in the US or Canada, it is easy to work seamlessly in the same language.

There are other issues, however that may dictate which web company you may want to use for dedicated hosting. Besides language and currency, other considerations should be support for your particular needs. Some companies offer far fewer options to get help when it’s needed. Choosing a competent but cheap dedicated hosting provider need not be complicated as long as you are comfortable with the operating system and the control panel.

International web host providers located outside of the US can provide an inexpensive alternative, but, and there is always a but, it may require far more effort on your part to get all the features you need for your site. In addition, the laws in each country vary and the effort and time needed to clarify any misunderstanding may not be worth the effort. The amount of time you spend may cost more than if you were using someone in your own country.

Cheap dedicated hosting then becomes a matter of bandwidth, support, reliability and cost. Finding the cheapest within your country’s jurisdiction becomes a matter of research. Using a package that allows for hardware replacement in a short time, or not concerned whether the servers are Linux or Windows can make the cost also come down.

The solution for your business, particularly if you require the website to be operating with 100% uptime, may be a dedicated hosting package that is not the absolute lowest cost. If you have to sacrifice service for a few dollars, then when all is said and done, it may not be the most prudent move to go with a lowest bid. Instead, you would be better off taking advantage of the promotional offers made by the web host provider.

Most providers offer a variety of managed hosting services, from Windows 2000 or even Windows 2003, and dedicated servers at a low enough cost, with good customer support to compete with any of the shared host providers. The value of a cheap dedicated hosting company is further enhanced when you take in the fact that there is generally no need to add costly upgrades, everything is within your control.

You can find all you need to know about dedicated hosting, VPS, managed hosting and email at the unbiased ratings and review site created for easy use by going to the website: http://www.cheapdedicatedhosting.ratingsbyusers.com

Six Steps to a More Secure Linux Server
By Christopher Pace

I’ve worked as a remote Linux System Administrator for quite a while, and one thing that I’ve noticed is that many “administrators” out there don’t know how to configure or secure a server properly. This article is a quick reference on some of the more important (and easy) security or configuration tweaks that any administrator should do for their server. These six steps can dramatically increase the security and stability of any Linux server. The best part about these tips, is that they are all quick and easy to do as well, with each step taking less than 15 minutes!

1.) Security Updates Not Installed
Nearly every server that I work on is not running the latest (and most secure) software. Yes, Linux is a great Operating System- but all software has security problems. Enabling the installation of automatic updates via a cron script or similar is the easiest and most foolproof way to ensure that your server isn’t compromised. There really isn’t any excuse not to install the latest security updates- older packages are saved in the package archives in case there is a stability or compatibility issue, and the updated packages are logged as they are updated.

2.) Disable root login via SSH, and password authentication
Admittedly, I’ve been guilty of this myself sometimes. Let’s face it, everyone likes being able to quickly and easily log into their servers, and change settings. However, if you’re using password authentication, what’s to keep someone else from logging into your server? In addition, you should not use password authentication on your Linux server, to prevent others from logging into your Linux server. Instead, enable RSA signed authorization keys. This is more secure, since an attacker will not be able to guess or brute force a login session with your server.

3.) Disable or filter extra services
This is the second biggest issue that I see working with new client’s servers. Often, the system administrator who setup their Linux server did not perform a necessary final step- filter incoming connections that aren’t necessary. I’ve seen everything from the daytime service running, to MySQL listening for connections on a remote IP. If a Linux administrator is not familiar with iptables, there are several tutorials out there that will show someone how to create even a basic firewall ruleset. In addition, disabling unnecessary services is a basic step in server optimization as well- why run extra services that tie up resources if they aren’t needed?

4.) Test accounts or guest accounts still active
Another glaring security issue (and an often exploited one) is that a client will still have test user accounts running (often with extremely easy passwords, such as test) once a software solution is deployed to a production server. I don’t need to go into the security ramifications with this one- make sure that you get rid of those guest or test accounts!

5.) Advertising banners left on
We all love advertising, don’t we? However, advertising to the world that the version of Apache or Sendmail that you run on your Linux server is 3 years old is not the type of attention that you want. Simply disabling the server banners will help hide your server from the basic script-dependent attackers. Besides, why help the bad guys determine what software your server is running?

6.) PHP errors or application errors
I’m pretty confident that we have all seen an error or two displayed on a website. Some errors that are displayed are not a security issue at all, for instance Javascript errors. However, some errors are security issues (PHP is particularly bad with this), because they disclose sensitive information. The easiest way around this is to disable displaying errors in PHP (or your web applications). Otherwise, an attacker may be given information about your website’s database details, or file locations.

These issues are the top 6 security issues that I see on a daily basis in my work. You can all check your server or servers for these quick issues (these tips take almost no time at all), and dramatically increase the security of your server. However, if you have any problems implementing these security steps, please feel free to contact me.

Christopher J. Pace is a freelance Linux consultant who has worked with Linux since 2001. He provides remote Linux consulting services for Linux servers.

Host Your Webpage Using Your Own Computer
By David Nies

There are many web hosting companies available willing to host your website for various monthly fees. Most of these fees are based on bandwidth usage, storage usage and anything else they can think of to add on fees.

Each company offers similar packages which include add-ons like support for programming languages such as PHP, ASP, Perl, database support such as MySQL or even a shopping cart for those of you interested in selling items from your website. If you have a need there is probably a company able to meet it for you and if not you may have just found yourself a business opportunity.

Don’t want to to pay the fees? Then I have a possible solution for you and I say possible because it will take a little patience to set everything up but if you’re willing I’ll show you how to setup your own computer to host your webpage yourself for free. Well not actually free you will still have to pay for the electric and your time to set it up but pretty close to free.

In order for you computer to act as a server it needs to be setup like one. And this is How. Every computer running Windows probably has a built in server that just needs to be started but I prefer using Apache Web server. Don’t panic it is also free.

Many of you may have read or heard how difficult it is to setup Apache server on your computer and not to discount those unfortunate soles in any way but there is a much easier way to install Apache along with several other items that may come in handy as your knowledge increases. (MySql, PHP, phpMyAdmin, Filezilla FTP Server, and Mercury Mail Transport System). Now all of these additional programs are beyond the scope of this article but I wanted to at least mention them.

Sound scary? Take some deep breaths or maybe count to 10 because it’s really not that bad. Okay here we go!

Setting up the Apache Web Server On your computer!

Apache is an open source software that is free for everyone to use and the best place I’ve found for downloading the program is ApacheFriends.org.

Apache Friends have an installation package available for download that takes all the headaches out of the setup process and pretty much does it all for you. To get started click on the link below and download (based on your computer’s operating system) the right version of what is called ? XAMPP

They have a download for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris. I downloaded and setup the installation package for windows so there might be some differences between my version and the one you will need however there is instructions available for each platform.

To get the ball rolling create a folder on your C drive called x or maybe xampp. x is shorter and to the point so I’ll use that. Now we need to double click the xampp installation package that we previously downloaded. The program start and ask you to select your language, once selected click next and then you’ll be prompted to enter in the path or location of the folder we previously setup.( “c:\x”) then click next. Here you will be prompted to create an icon on the desktop etc.

At the bottom of this screen the software will provide options for installation. You can install either or all of Apache, MySQL, and Fileszilla. I selected all of them and then clicked install but you begin with only setting up Apache if you like. At this point you will see the software begin to install and once it’s finished you will receive a message stating “Installation Complete” and a popup box asking if you would like to start the Xampp Control Panel now? Click yes.

Xampp Control Panel should now open and if we look at it we can see that Apache has the word “Running” beside it. MySQL and Fileszilla will to if you installed them as well. If the word “Running” is not there you can click on the button labeled start beside each one to get them running.

Once these are running you should be able to open your web browser and type http: //localhost/xampp/splash.php to see a page that was created through the installation process. Feel free to explore the different information that is available by selecting your language.

Now your all setup and rolling right? Okay maybe not yet.Where do we put the web pages we have created?

If you navigate to your C: drive and then locate and open the folder we called x you will see several folders along with a number of files. For now we are going to be interested in the folder called “htdocs” this is where you will keep the index.htm or start page. If an index file already exists then rename it for now and then open up notepad and type the following.

THIS ACTUALLY WORKED!

Then save it as index.htm or index.html file. Now let’s try out our new web server by opening up your web browser and typing in http: //localhost/index.htm, http: //localhost/index.html or just type in http: //127.0.0.1 which is sort of an alis for your computers home ip address. If the words above in bold displays then it’s working and your all set.

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