OS 9 with PHP and MySQL (maybe Linux?)

does it work?

[andrethegiant]

hello, I have a 400MHz iMac G3 w/ 192Mb RAM running os 9.0 and i want to install PHP and MySQL on it. Is this possible? are there any workarounds?

if not, i suppose OSX would be too slugish on my comp, so my next option would be Linux. Which distro do you recommend that will run relatively quick on my rig? I want something as minimal as possible, but with php, mysql, (interface is optional).

[BjarneDM]

the combination of Apache, MySQL and PHP simply isn't available under OS 9.

Linux: Yellow Dog Linux v4.0 should be up to it

[timster]

i suppose OSX would be too slugish on my comp

Well, let's consider that a bit. OS X + PHP + MySQL should run on your machine decently if you upgrade the RAM to 512 Mb or so.

This guy says it worked for him: [lowendmac.com ]

I'm not sure you'll get much more (or any more) performance from Linux on the box, since Apple has optimized their OS for their hardware quite a bit.

But I wonder, are you looking to use this machine for other tasks, or will it be a dedicated server?

[andrethegiant]

no, this machine will only be used for a server.... I'd probably delete all the apps on it to free up space for uploads and such. and i don't want to spend any money on ram no matter how much it helps. what i want to know is will the database be snappier if it is on linux or osx, or would the difference be so insignificant it wouldn't matter?

[encyclo]

If you're talking about a minimal server setup running Linux, then you're got more than enough RAM. I've got a test server which is a 133MHz Pentium PC with 72Mb RAM running Slackware 10, PHP and MySQL and it manages just fine as long as you're not running X as well.

Any of the Linux distros which can run on Mac hardware will do the job just fine: Yellow Dog, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc. If you need a fast interface, you can choose a lightweight window manager such as XFCE or WindowMaker.