[prog] PHP/MySQL/Apache on CD - can it be done?

[Gareth Anderson]

Hi,

Just thought I'd follow up after the project with some feedback and
information about the livecd.

We failed to hand the livecd in on-time due to hitting a known bug in
LAMPPIX. The bug was mentioned in the support forum but only having a few
hours sleep I didn't see it :(.

Anyway, for anyone who wants to use LAMPPIX version 1.1, if you are using
more than one database. Then the LAMPPIX cd will give you weird errors about
find when you boot up:
http://lamppix.tinowagner.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=370&t=360

 "Installing databases....
find: path must precede expression
Usage: find [path...] [expression]"

The developer knows whats wrong and intends to fix this next release.

The mentioned bug has problems with multiple databases and has 2 fixes in
the forum. I've used a post-install script, it runs mysqladmin to create the
databases. And mysql over the scripts to create the tables and insert the
data (it literally runs them from the CD in their location which is
/KNOPPIX/usr/lampp/bin/mysqladmin etc. (I think thats correct).

Also for anyone considering burning this CD in 2 stages as described by the
http://lamppix.tinowagner.com/wiki/index.php?GettingYourFilesOnTheCD using
Windows/Nero. I couldn't get this working when it was multi-session. I could
burn the first part (the ISO) and it would boot ok. Burning the second part
(the files you need) would fail. I tried using Alcohol 120% and could get it
to work for the first part only.
After a few tries I gave up on getting to to burn multi-session and be
bootable.

I found it a lot easier to do this under linux. Simply follow the commands
to create the ISO image, and (if your like me) ignore the others. Use your
preferred program to burn the image etc.
Customising the image is a lot easier than it sounds, all your doing is
copying the ISO's files and adding a few of your own in the "www"
directory...

To customise the image just mount it as a loopback, copy it, make the
changes and then re-create the ISO (possibly in linux).

Its all working (although the project finshed on Friday :(). I'm hoping I
can submit this CD late as a proof-of-concept of what could be done...

Also, using a program called qemu works great for testing the CD without
burning (a free computer emulator). Its fairly easy to install, but you
can't take advantage of kqemu (ie the technology that makes it run at a sane
speed) unless you compile it from scratch and have kernel sources installed
etc...
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

Also having lots of memory helps because your running an OS + (in my case a
Knoppix CD + Xfce + webserver + database server + firefox) :)

Anyway just thought I'd tell everyone how it went.

Thanks for the help,
Gareth