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LAMP, WAMP and XAMPP

September 30, 2006 on 1:40 pm | In Build, IdBlog, Tools | Add a Comment

Shortly after I got this box in late 2002, I realized that Windows XP Home did not come with a built-in server. I needed a local test environment for my development work and to run server-based tools.

After a bit of research I found Xitami, which was easy to setup and use. For the stuff I was building at the time it worked just fine.

By the middle of 2003, however, I started looking for a full-featured server setup. IIS was out and so was NT. I needed something that was free, flexible and robust. More research led me to LAMP, or more precisely WAMP, a Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP bundle that I could install and run on my PC.

Apache ran alright, but getting it configured properly was tough. I never mastered the httpd.conf file. Nor could I make the components play well together. Multiple tries, a week of frustration and cursing, and I was back with Xitami.

Then I found XAMPP. I got the bundle from the Apache Friends site in June of 2004 and had it up and running in about an hour. Configuration and security was a snap.

XAMPP stands for Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl. The X is for multiple operating systems — it runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.

The XAMPP project was begun in 2002 by Kai Seidler and Kay Vogelgesang. The Apache Friends core team now numbers about five with an international crew of volunteers helping out. The developers estimate the XAMPP bundle has been downloaded over three million times in the last four years.

This morning I downloaded the latest version of XAMPP with Apache 2 and MySQL 5. The whole project, from download to security lock took just 45 minutes. All in all, XAMPP is a great tool and the platform of choice for lazy open source developers who never aspired to become sysadmins.