Drupal start-up

Initial Drupal set-up

[rakhi]

Hi All,

I'm just getting my head around CMS's and I'm considering the use of drupal for a small site.

If my site is being hosted by a hosting company do I need to install web-servers etc on my desktop?

Surely I only need to do this if I plan on running the site from my desktop itself?

My host is PHP, MySQL compatible do I need anything else.

A point in the right direction would be much appreciated as some of the help guides I have picked up make no sense.

Apologies for the somewhat very basic question

R

[mayest]

rakhi, all you need is the hosting account with PHP and MySQL. Be sure that they are running versions of PHP and MySQL that are compatible with Drupal. They probably are, but I know that Joomla was having problems with some versions of PHP back when I was looking at it.

With that said, you might want to experiment with Drupal and/or other CMS systems on a WAMP server setup on your PC before installing to your host. I found that it was just easier for me to play around with different CMSs in a VMWare virtual machine, where I didn't have to worry about screwing anything up.

[prfb]

You can definitely just play around on your hosted site.

The only reason to install Drupal and the rest on your desktop is to (a) work or show show work while you're offline, and (b) avoid people seeing what you're working on until it's ready.

It doesn't sound like (a) concerns you, and (b) you can do just by requiring users to log in to see anything (in site permissions, just uncheck all the permissions for anonymous users).

Best of luck!

[ergophobe]

Actually, the reason (for me) to install drupal on your desktop is so that you can play around with themes and modules in a sandbox without risking bringing down the whole site.

There is a plug and play distro that packages Apache/PHP/MySQL/drupal in a single install package. Can't remember where I saw it.

[mustardman]

Most hosting packages include Fantastico which offers one click Drupal install! Accessed from Cpanel or Plesk.

[corodyne]

The full distribution that includes Apache/MySQL/Perl/PHP/etc is XAMPP and is available from Sourceforge. You can download or read about it at the following link:

[sourceforge.net...]
[apachefriends.org...]

I use it extensively as a sandbox and have crafted it so that it mirrors my live webserver.

I had to make some tweaks to the http.conf file for Apache (changed the default listening port), but otherwise it ran great out of the box.

enjoy,

Chris

[ergophobe]

Using a sandbox is a great idea. I always build, test, ruin, start over, build test, ruin start over, build test, go live. That's the safest way to deal with a new CMS.

By the way, I also like to create a virtual host so that if my site is example.com, I run it locally on example.loc. That way generally speaking any path problems sort themselves out.