i'm trying to make a lamp server on my old 333mhz comp using slackware 10 and the latest versions of apache, mysql, and php, but i'm having a few basic problems/problems. can anybody help me with these?

1. most of the lamp howtos and tutorials i have seen say that i need to install php as some kind of module of apache, does this mean i dont have to install php on my system, i just have to have the php module installed in apache?

2. most of the lamp howtos reccomend installing everything from source, but this is a pretty old machine and it took me like 5 hours just to compile mysql. i've downloaded .tgz files off of www.slackware.com/pb of php, apache, and mysql, but what about the php module that apache needs?

3. what if i did compile and install everything from source? how would i setup my startup script? the tgz files put rc.httpd and rc.mysql in my rc.d folder, but how would i get my own rc.httpd script if i compiled and installed apache from the source on apache.com?

1) When you install PHP, you are actually installing the Apache module (along with the PHP binary itself if you select it, so you can run PHP outside of Apache). If you compile from source, you can run PHP as a CGI binary which has both advantages and disadvantages. Basically, to answer your question, when you talk of installing PHP, you're actually talking about installing the Apache module.

2) The Slackware package will have the Apache module. I tend to compile from source though, so you may need to do some extra configurtion to have Apache load the module. You don't have to compile from source, but it gives the most flexibility.

3) You would write those files yourself; it's not hard. Just a line that starts the appopriate daemon. Remember to make sure you're startup scripts are called from rc.M or one of the rc.inet scripts (as appropriate).

ok, i've got all that installed then, but what do i need to do to configure it? just add "AddType application/x-httpd-php .php" and "AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps"? if i do this and try to access a php page on my server it tries to download the actual php file instead of serving it to me. do i need to uncomment "Include /etc/apache/mod_php.conf"? some of the tuts i've seen say to do this but my httpd wont start if i have it uncommented.
bump

anybody out there? bump

This is a common question that I've been seeking help for also. If anyone has something to add please do so. or is this forum dead?

I'm willing to help, but I need more info.

Did you add this line:

LoadModule php4_module libexec/libphp4.so

to your httpd.conf?

also if you are getting an error message, what does it day?

Also, check your error_log file. Mine is located in /var/log/httpd/ but I'm not sure if that's the case on all distros. The error_log will usually tell you what's going wrong when you try to access something that isn't there.

I just saw this 35.00 book on getting LAMP working.
Seemd to me a bit funny considering all I had to do was install Slackware 10, full install,
uncomment 1 line in the /etc/apache/httpd.conf for PHP and chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld.
I might have already done something else to apache like inabling cgi in the httpd.conf file.
All this from a Linux distro said to be Not full featured.
Slackware rules, Fluxbox rocks!

Setting Up LAMP: Getting Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP Working Together
Paperback
Author: Eric Rosebrock, Eric Filson, Eric Rosebrock
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Release Date: 22 July, 2004
ISBN: 0782143377