This is how we build a LAMP stack. Start off with some commodity hardware that meets your applications specs for memory, hard drive space, processing power, etc. Without the built in OS license you should be able to save several hundred of dollars on the hardware.

Tip: Click here for great deals on barebone systems from TigerDirect.com

The ‘L’ in LAMP is for Linux … GNU/Linux that is. GNU/Linux is a term used to describe a variety of “Linux Distributions” that are freely available. I like the Fedora distribution, although the other free operating systems listed here are all good choices as well.

The ‘A’ is for Apache. Apache is the most widely used web server on the Internet. It can be extended with any number of modules. Use it as an application server that delivers your web site to the public, intranet applications to your employees and web applications to your customers.

For the ‘M’ load up the latest, stable version of MySQL Community Server to support all of your database driven applications. This is the most popular free database solution. Don’t forget the GUI Tools.

The ‘P’ can stand for a number of programming language platforms that are freely available. These allow developers to create custom applications on your LAMP stack. The main three ‘P’s are PHP, Perl and Python. For the later two I prefer the ActivePerl and ActivePython distributions.

The LAMP stack is used for a huge portion of the Internet application market. The web site you are viewing right now is being delivered via a LAMP stack as are many popular content management systems like WordPress. It is a growing part of the business application market as well, displacing Windows and SQL Server based solutions at a growing pace.

In addition to the products outlined here check out more free server applications at the Free Software Catalog here on GARA.com.

Need help putting one together? Contact me with your questions.

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