PHP, PhpMyAdmin and Mysql for a beginner

Question

Hi,
I am a web designer that has a sound knowledge of xhtml and
css, but I am now finding that knowing about dynamic designing is
becoming more and more important to what I want to do.
So with that in mind I have started to learn php
implementation and how to call information from a database. After
doing some research on the topic, it looks like MySQL and
PhpMyAdmin are the way forward as I come from a web design role and
not a web developer one..
So I need some help where to start with these. I feel that I
can teach myself how to do it, if only I knew how to start., I.e.
Really good tutorials that are made for complete beginners like
myself.
I have never set up a Mysql server or installed PhpMyAdmin
before either; this seems like a complicated thing to do. Do I need
to install anything on my local machine? Or is it all uploaded to
my hosting account??
Please I need some direction on this; every where says
different things about it.
Thanks
Ash

Answer 1

On 17 Jun 2006 in macromedia.dreamweaver, ash_designman
wrote:
> I have never set up a Mysql server or installed
PhpMyAdmin before
> either; this seems like a complicated thing to do. Do I
need to
> install anything on my local machine? Or is it all
uploaded to my
> hosting account??
It's not at all difficult. My favorite method:
- Adopt an old box; nearly anything will do. I'm running a
server on a
PII/400 with 320M of memory.
- Download a Linux distro. I'm using Fedora Core - both FC4
and FC5 on
different boxes.
http://fedora.redhat.com/ But
most distros will do.
You can get information on many of them at
http://distrowatch.com/
- Install Linux. For most distros, it's a graphical install
and goes
smoothly. Do the server install unless you want to use the
box as a
workstation. Once you've done the install, you won't even
need an
attached monitor, keyboard or mouse.
- Do a little tweaking to make sure that Apache and the MySQL
daemon
are running.
That's it for that method.
The other way is to download and install a WAMP (Windows
Apache MySQL
PHP) package. I'm not all that familiar with it, but David
Powers
posts frequently on the topic. You can look for his posts.
One
package I've seen mentioned frequently for ease of install is
XAMPP
from Apache Friends:
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html
Going the Linux route means that you'll have a test box which
matches
what's available with many hosting packages (Apache/PHP on
*nix with
MySQL); you will have to do a bit of learning to administer
it,
however.
Going with Windows means that you can run the server right on
your
development machine; however, Windows Apache (and PHP and
MySQL) tend
to have a couple of gotchas which you won't run into on a
*nix box.
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.net/
Email:
http://makowiec.net/email.php