I posted something recently talking about how I am using my laptop as a test bed for various Web 2.0 ideas ( Experimenting with Web 2.0 on my laptop ). Several people have asked for more details on that environment.
Here is what I am running today:
Hardware: IBM T41 with 1GB of memory and a 30 GB harddrive
Software:
- Windows XP Pro (SP1 plus selected elements of SP2 as determined by our IS
shop)- Apache 2.0.53
- MySQL 4.0.24
- PHP 4.3.11
- Active Perl 5.6.1.638
- Python 2.3.5
- mod_python 3.1.3
- pywin32-204
I also have a variety of other libraries and utilities installed as part of larger applications I am using or experimenting with. Installing these in a Windows environment such as that above is generally pretty straightforward and well-described in the installation documentation I have used so far.
I configure my various Web 2.0 applications to use localhost as their host. Apache is configured to listen only to requests that are local. Recently I have begun to set up virtual hosts using Apache and entries in my hosts file (in windows\system32\drivers\etc) to map the virtual hosts to localhost.
I have had to learn a bit about how to configure Apache and tweak the configurations of the packages above. Most of that has involved backups that you trust and a willingness to read through installation documents and notes that