LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and php, (or Perl). It's one of the most popular web hosting platforms. If you're developing websites, it's good to have your own private development environment to use while you build and test your websites. This post will show you how to set up a web development environment on Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot to use for testing.

LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, which represents a very common configuration for Linux-based web servers. If you're interested in testing websites, particularly those that involve a server-side scripting language like PHP, you can install a local LAMP server on your own computer. This tutorial will show you some tricks for setting up a local LAMP server.

I do tend to go on. But here's the short version of why I'm running Debian instead of Ubuntu.

The existence of Linux is inevitable in the realm of LAMP based web development. It is more than incomplete to talk about LAMP without the operating system - Linux. Although Apache, mySQL and PHP/Python/Perl are equally capable of running over non-*nix machines too, Linux predominantly holds a larger share in terms of developers’ choice. Hence the acronym - LAMP. So, where lies the difference?

If you work around Linux regularly, in some ways the latest amazing news is… not that amazing. The New York Stock Exchange, where the world’s largest public companies trade their stocks, is now running on Linux. (Microsoft is not listed on the NYSE; they trade on the NASDAQ. Now *that* would have been a fun headline…) In addition the Chicago Mercantile Exchange also runs on Linux.

I never get tired of mentioning the fact that Linux supports more hardware and is on more devices than any other operating system I know of. It runs on anything from the largest super computers in the world to a computer smaller than a matchbox. In short practically the whole world is supported by Linux.

If you're developing websites, it's nice to be able to test your code in the privacy of your own computer rather that out in the public internet. In order to do that, you'll need to install a webserver on your development computer. LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, php) is one of the most common web hosting platforms, so it's a perfect environment for you to build and test your website code.

Pop quiz: you have a web site and you want it to be popular. It must scale to tens, hundreds of thousands, even millions of visitors. It has to be snappy and responsive. What server platform will you host it on?

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on digg about installing LAMP. I thought I’d take some time and inform those who are unfamiliar what exactly LAMP is, and how it is powering the Web 2.0 revolution.