Setup a PHP/MySQL web server

Over the last few months we've mentioned several times that Open Source software can be a low cost way of getting a highly functional website using, for instance, an Open Source Content Management System (CMS).  However, whilst Open Source software can often be highly functional, trying it out can be tricky.  Whilst many developers provide a trial version of their software on their websites, it's quite common to find that some of the features will have been disabled for security reasons and this means that you can't fully test the software.

In order to really get to grips with Open Source software you need to install it on a web server and this is where it starts to become rather tricky !  If you have the knowledge (not to mention an old computer lying around) you could download and install a Linux distribution but a better option is to use a web server on your Windows computer.

Although Windows ships with a basic web server it is not suitable for running the bulk of Open Source packages.  This is because most packages require the PHP scripting language coupled with the MySQL database in order to dynamically generate pages based on the users actions.

Installing these individually on Windows is possible - although not for the faint-hearted - and can be an excellent way to waste an afternoon.  But thankfully there is an easier option which allows you to get a fully functional server up and running in less than 30 minutes.

In this tutorial we'll show you how to download, install and configure a single application called Sokkit which includes Apache, PHP and MySQL.  Once installed you should be able to download and try out almost any Open Source web site package from the likes of Hotscripts.com.

Note that the software we are going to install offers a 30-day free trial after which you'll need to buy it.  To undertake later tutorials you'll need to have installed Sokkit - whether you buy it now or just download the trial in the future is up to you but at $20 (around £13) it's certainly not going to break the bank !

Before we start, our first step is to download the latest version of Sokkit.