Hey guys,

I just installed Linux on one of my machines today. I considering using it for all of my web related endevours but i cannot seem to find/figure out where to get LAMP and how to then set it up.

Im using Ubuntu 8.04 desktop edition.

I just want a simple setup just like wamp server for windows. Any suggestions would be great, thanks.

Try using XAMPP. It's a pretty easy setup.

I just want a simple setup just like wamp server for windows.

A linux installation is usually not like windows.
I never tried xampp, and frankly, I am not sure of what it brings.

Simply install apache + php and mysql.
Then, activate the network support in mysql, and voila.
Then, you just ahve to add virtualhosts and you are ready to go.

No need for phpmyadmin, when you can use the mysql query explorer directly through the network, from your windows computer.

The XAMPP install does all that at once, and it IS easy. I've installed it on my XP machine, it was a snap and works perfectly. Easy to work with, no headaches installing Apache, mysql and php separately.

I've installed it on my XP machine, it was a snap and works perfectly. Easy to work with, no headaches installing Apache, mysql and php separately.

Yes, but Windows as a mechanism that allows to have several versions of the same library on the system.

Linux too, but it needs to be tweaked through an "run script".
Xampp for linux installing it's own version of apache might cause problems alter because you might have 2 separate installation of Apache, or Mysql that might not be in sync.
The update might fsck up pretty badly then.

Beside, linux in general and Ubuntu in particular have an centralized application repository, and they maintain the dependencies.

So, asking to install support for PHP and Apache and Mysql is just a matter of checking 3 checkboxes and pressing the "install" button.
In that sense, a "meta package" like xampp seems pretty useless to me.

From the sounds of it trying to setup a dev environment like i have on my windows box is not so feasible on my linux box. As it turns out there was one other thing i could not get my linux box to do that my windos computers do easily...so its a bust anyway.

As much as i like Ubuntu, as much as it seems to exceed and surpass windows in many areas...some of the "simple things" are not so simple on linux.

For now i still see myself sticking to windows for my work and do have a dual boot machine with Ubuntu for playing with.

To put it the other way, you can do it in linux, but it's not as easy as on windows.
Installing all this on windows is way harder than linux, but many peoples worked to make it a nobrainer and one click install.

Until recently, the people using Linux where more inclined in technology, and to learn another way of doing. Most linux users didn't mind getting down under the hood to install all of this and configure it.

I personally find it easier today on Linux, because xampp has some limitation that are inherent of the structure choose at the beginning.
You can overcome them (I think virtualhosts here), but you have to manually edit text file, modify the apache configuration and setup db, just like you would on linux.

In the end, it's really not that hard:
1)install apache
2)install php
3)install mysql and the mysql query browser (why bother with phpMyAdmin locally?)
4)create a virtualhost in apache (eg: myForum.dev)
5)edit /etc/hosts to redirect your virtualhost domain to your local server (127.0.0.1 myForum.dev)
6)setup the mysql db and the access rights
7)do an apache graceful reload to apply the new virtualhost
8)start coding

Honestly, it's not that much.
You cannot totally circumvent a little bit of sysadmin if you plan to setup an hosting environment (even locally).

If you replicate the xampp setup, you can do with 1 virtualhost (default is /var/www/localhost/htdocs on my gentoo machine) and you can skip the point n°4 , n°5 and n°7