[RndTbl] Mac as a web server
Dan Martin
ummar143 at shaw.ca
Wed Sep 15 17:14:47 CDT 2010
Hi Mike
The curse of *nix users everywhere is dependency hell, and I've had my share.
I have not done what you're trying to do, but I would second Peter's suggestion to use MacPorts or Fink.
I have installed several *nix things on my Mac, the most recent being GnuPlot on Snow Leopard. Being a slow learner, I spent a couple hours duplicating what someone at a web site had done (I'm sure with a different Mac OS and different vintage software) using install and make to compile the dependencies from zipped sources.
When it failed, I used MacPorts, and had it running within minutes. Darwin does some weird stuff with some of the dependencies.
A long time ago I had similar experiences with Suse and Red Hat. If the package manager (in your case MacPorts or Fink) does not have a port for the software you're looking for (and MacPorts has a lot), at least install as many dependencies as you can from the package manager before you go to the direct compilation route.
-Dan
On 2010-09-15, at 4:49 PM, Mike Pfaiffer wrote:
> On 10-09-15 03:16 PM, Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> I don't know if this is much of a help, but you can easily run Linux on a G4
>> Mac. I'm running it as a personal server at home on an ancient G4 laptop.
>> Debian in particular is particularly apathetic to CPUs, you just put in the
>> CD and install as if it were any other kind of computer, which is why I use
>> it on my PowerPC "personal server" machines... well, also because Debian
>> simply kicks a$$.
>>
>> http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.6/powerpc/iso-cd/debian-506-powerpc-netinst.iso
>
> That's an option I will absolutely consider. Since it's a G4 there
> isn't the problem with "new world" vs "old world" Macs. I didn't think
> it would be that easy.
>
>> Sorry if this is just ignoring everything you're trying to do, but I figured
>> it was worth a mention. :) - I'm afraid you'll always have problems running
>> the most recent versions of PHP/Apache/MySQL on a PowerPC Mac OS X
>> installation unless you compile them from source, but I'm not sure how
>> problematic that would be on Mac OS X in general. Apple tends to fiddle
>> around a lot with the environment and GCC, often resulting in broken
>> compilations from source, so I'm guessing you're up for a lot of long-term
>> problems sticking to Mac OS 10.4.
>
> I was able to compile some software on my Mac Mini. So compilation is a
> possibility.
>
>> Long story short, if losing Mac OS X is indeed an option, Debian is
>> definitely the way to go with a PowerPC machine.
>
> I'm not really set on OS X but I'd like to see if I can exhaust the
> most reasonable possibilities first. You know how these things are... I
> am eventually going to be asked how to do it that way.
>
> With Debian I can apt-get install from source.
>
>> Hope it helps and apologies if it doesn't. ;)
>
> It does. I suspect this is what I am most likely to do in the end. If
> not on this machine then certainly on another.
>
>> Kind regards,
>> Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson
>> helgi at binary.is
>
> Later
> Mike
>
>
>
>> On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Mike Pfaiffer<high.res.mike at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> This is just something to keep me occupied for a while. It isn't
>>> anything serious (yet).
>>>
>>> As I said at this months meeting I have a spare G4 server sitting
>>> around. Last month I was playing around with the current Ubuntu server.
>>> I found some applications which should work as long as the revision
>>> level of the software is fine. Which is to say they worked with Ubuntu
>>> server but whine and complain about the default revisions on the G4 (OS
>>> X 10.4 desktop). It really shouldn't be too difficult to set things up
>>> on a Mac...
>>>
>>> Here is what I've done so far.
>>>
>>> After a couple of days of reading on the web I found people are
>>> suggesting upgrading to 10.5 (out of the question), or updating the
>>> software to something close to current. The suggestions are Apache 2.x,
>>> MySQL 5.x, and PHP 5.x would be good things to install. The defaults are
>>> Apache 1.3, and PHP 4.x. I don't know if MySQL is installed. Oh, and it
>>> was suggested Webmin would be good for playing around on a small scale.
>>>
>>> I tried installing the individual components separately based on
>>> what
>>> they suggested on the product web sites and had mixed success. Although
>>> PHP was in the 5.x range it wasn't near current. Apache 2.x installed
>>> but the built in 1.3 wouldn't let it run properly. MySQL just whined.
>>>
>>> Following some suggestions from the net I looked at a series of
>>> programs called MAMP and found the installation to be very easy. All the
>>> software it installed was relatively up to date. Everything ran well
>>> with a major show stopper. Connecting locally was fine but connecting
>>> through the LAN defaulted back to the old software versions. It seems
>>> MAMP and another series of programs called XAMPP only want to be run
>>> locally as a development environment.
>>>
>>> There was one web page I found about 20 minutes ago which suggested
>>> using Mac Ports to update the software. After getting into the page a
>>> little there was a hint I wouldn't have much more in the way of success
>>> if I went that route.
>>>
>>> Oh, I also made sure Personal Web Sharing was turned off in the
>>> System
>>> Preferences.
>>>
>>> Now for the request for some advice...
>>>
>>> If I were running an Intel Mac I would just install a virtual
>>> machine
>>> with Ubuntu server or something similar and be done with it.
>>> Unfortunately the G4 is a PPC and not an Intel box.
>>>
>>> Does anybody have any advice on where to proceed from here? The Mac
>>> Ports idea might be worth a look if I can somehow point the default
>>> server away from Apache 1.3 to 2.x. Running MAMP may have some merit
>>> since I can change the default port to 80. Unfortunately Webmin wants to
>>> run on a different port and defaults back to Apache 1.3. I could install
>>> *BSD but I think that's a little more involved than I want to get at
>>> this point.
>>>
>>> Like the problem I was having with PHP last year, it's probably a 10
>>> second fix. The problem is where to apply the fix. ;-)
>>>
>>> Later
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Roundtable mailing list
>>> Roundtable at muug.mb.ca
>>> http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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Dan Martin
GP Hospital Practitioner
Computer Scientist
ummar143 at shaw.ca
(204) 831-1746
answering machine always on
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