PHP & linux

[Force Flow]

Does Mandrake 9.1 or Red Hat 8 come with PHP? If not, where can I get it?

[edit]: Also, what about MySQL? Does that come installed or do I have do download it?

[kilgoretrout]

I beleive both are on the installation CDs.

[Force Flow]

How would I check to see if they were installed?
Can they be installed after the O/S has been installed?

[kilgoretrout]

To see if packages are installed you can run the following from the command line:

# rpm -qa | grep mysql

or

# rpm -qa | grep php

In Mandrake, go to Mandrake Control Center(mcc)>Software Management. If you want to find out what's installed ticking the remove software button will will bring up an interface where you can search for installed packages, eg type php or mysql in the search field. If you want to install php or mysql packages, tick on the install packages button and again type mysql or php in the search field. I just did this for mysql and see a lot of packages including MySQL 4.0. I also see a lot of packages for php. Not that familiar with either one so I can't offer a lot of advice. When you select a package a description appears on the right for the highlighted package. If you see a package you want to install check it and tick the install button. Frequently, a window will pop up and inform you that other packages have to be installed with the one selected and ask you for permission to install the additional packages. Say yes and you will be prompted to insert the appropriate install CD(s). It's really pretty simple in Mandrake. Quick tip: if you want to launch mcc and are having trouble finding it, open a console and as root run:

# mcc

It will fire right up. Newbies often get confused between KDE Control Center and mcc.

Red Hat has a less sophisticated gui software management tool which I beleive brings up a screen that looks like the package selection screen during the install. Haven't used it in a long time and I don't recall what kind of search functions it has. I beleive you'll find pretty much the same type of packages available on both red hat and mandrake.

Once you install the packages you want you might want to check out the Linux Documentation Project for how tos:

http://www.tldp.org/

Just type in mysql or php in the search field. It looks like they have a lot of good info on both. Good Luck.

[Force Flow]

Great! I'll give it a try. Thanks, kilgoretrout!

[Force Flow]

Hmm... I think I installed them, but I'm not sure. A PHP installation file I'm trying to run isn't working.

I read in the manal for this installation file (which is a web forum, btw) that the default directory that PHP is located in is user/local/bin/php, but there's nothing in the bin folder. Huh?

[mairving]

To see if php is running, type php -v at the command line. This will tell you if it is running and what version. You will then need to make sure that the apache php module is activated. Here is how to compile apache with the new module.

It doesn't matter about the default directory. The only thing that you have to worry about is where the php.ini file is. Usually in /usr/local/lib.