Thread

For those of you that have a development server, what OS do you use and what tools do you use to manage it?

I’ve been running CentOS and havn’t had any problems. I started with Ubuntu but didnt like using sudo. I’m currently in the process of a reconfiguration and was wondering what ever one else uses. I’ve been looking at FreeBSD but not sure if I want to move from linux.

CentOS is a decent one. Especially since a lot of cPanel shared web hosting companies these days use it. So generally its easy to find the packages you need installed. ie. LAMP.

I personally like using Slackware or Gentoo for my development server. Why? I have used both for several years so I have them around. (Free|Open)BSD I have only played with a little bit. Pay attention to the partitioning. I wasn’t paying to much attention and had a heck of a time until I sat back and actually started reading the screen.

As for tools to manage the test server. Really all I use is vi. There really isn’t to much to manage once I get everything setup. You might look into openvz though. Its a virtualization package that works pretty nicely. Though I suggest using CentOS if you decided to install it as that is what the instructions recommend (last time I checked). I use it when I come across something I want to test out and play with but not take the chance of FUBARing the stuff I have on my server.

Local Development is OSX, Remote Development is running RedHat in complete mirror of our production environment 😊

Edit: I say go with what you’re most comfortable with and what can get you closest to your production environment. For general PHP work this is normally some flavor of ‘nix.

My machine is OS X, so all my development is local.

Deployment is linux though, always linux.

Windows! Although i like ubuntu.

We have Ubuntu for our development server and CentOS for our live server. We just setup Ubuntu around 2 years ago because we didn’t have much linux administration experience back then so went for the easy way - especially seeming all we wanted was a simple LAMP setup.

At home however I use my media box as the development server. Its just running Windows XP with Mediaportal (much much better then Windows Media Centre) and xampp for the development side of things.

I have ubuntu as development server. Cause it’s easy to set up.

But, it’s hard to find the better thing to edit the graphic or media (especially) flash editor. Again, Text-Editor it’s simple and powerfull (with plugin) to edit or create the CodeIgniter code. And I love the snippet way. 😊

Local is Windows and Apache. Remote is Debian and Apache

Locally, I’m running Windows, because I need it for school (microsoft office and visual studio needed). Though I’ve been considering getting Ubuntu as a development area in VMWare. Matter of fact, I’m downloading an iso right now.

I wish I had a better development area though. I do most of my development on a subdomain on my current host, so my few clients can check out the progress online, but I wish I had the money to get an actual server for myself. Would make things loads easier…

Locally, I’m running Windows, because I need it for school (microsoft office and visual studio needed). Though I’ve been considering getting Ubuntu as a development area in VMWare. Matter of fact, I’m downloading an iso right now.

I wish I had a better development area though. I do most of my development on a subdomain on my current host, so my few clients can check out the progress online, but I wish I had the money to get an actual server for myself. Would make things loads easier…

I started out with just running a WAMP on my desktop. After I got a new computer I took my old one and just left it as a WAMP server. However I wanted to be able to do more with it so I installed a linux distro. Problem was it was a really loud box. So I ended up sending about $300 and got a nice little box to run as a server. Got a AMD X2 4000+ with 2 gigs of ram and 500g hdd. Works well and totally worth the price.

Locally, I’m running Windows, because I need it for school (microsoft office and visual studio needed). Though I’ve been considering getting Ubuntu as a development area in VMWare. Matter of fact, I’m downloading an iso right now.

I wish I had a better development area though. I do most of my development on a subdomain on my current host, so my few clients can check out the progress online, but I wish I had the money to get an actual server for myself. Would make things loads easier…

I started out with just running a WAMP on my desktop. After I got a new computer I took my old one and just left it as a WAMP server. However I wanted to be able to do more with it so I installed a linux distro. Problem was it was a really loud box. So I ended up sending about $300 and got a nice little box to run as a server. Got a AMD X2 4000+ with 2 gigs of ram and 500g hdd. Works well and totally worth the price.

You don’t happen to have some more information on how to setup a server with WAMP? Can you access it externally?

Currently I just use XAMPP for development (usually on a thumb drive).

When I get back home, the plan is to:
A) Build a new desktop computer
B) Take my current desktop and convert it into a Media Center for movies and such, hooked up to the big screen.
C) Setup a web server on said Media Center desktop for development and remote backup purposes (so that machine will actually serve 2-3 purposes)

I would’ve thought if you had a remote development server, it would be the same OS and configuration as the deployment server, so you know it will work and there won’t be any discrepancies between the two. But I can see a few people use their home machine, just like me 😛

Michael: I highly recommend you give Mediaportal a go - it makes for an awesome HTPC setup. Also buy the Microsoft Media Center remote and you will be set. It’s also the TV Tuner for me at home so I can do timeshifting, record shows etc.

And lastly look into using the following case - its very quiet and looks like an audio amp.

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15738

I use Apache, PHP, mySQL on Vista for development, then I have a virtual machine hooked up to my network for website testing (Ubunutu Server), this emulates the deployment server. I haven’t purchased it yet, but I’m planning on getting Ubunut Server over at SliceHost.