Level: Beginner | Duration: 3h 52m | Released: Jun 13, 2014

Need a fast, powerful, and free development environment? Learn how to set up a virtual Linux web server on your Mac or Windows computer quickly—no additional formatting, dual booting, or hardware required. Author Jon Peck shows you how to set up a virtual machine with VirtualBox, download and install a Linux server, and then configure the additional LAMP stack elements: Apache, MySQL, and PHP. The course also describes how to create a database and users, install development tools like Xdebug, manage your source code with Git, and troubleshoot common installation and configuration issues.

The demonstrations are performed with the Ubuntu LTS distribution of Linux, but the skills taught here are also applicable to other Linux distributions. Every command is described in detail in context, and a comprehensive quick reference is provided for convenience.

Topics include:
What is Linux, and why should I use it?
What's a LAMP, and why does it matter?
Creating and configuring a virtual machine
Working with the Linux command line
Configuring the servers, including Apache virtual hosts
Building a development server dashboard
Using PHP package managers like Composer and PEAR
Installing Drupal, WordPress, and more on the server
Self-hosting Git repositories, including a web interface
Enhancing the server with debugging and profiling
Exporting a virtual appliance to use on another machine
Server troubleshooting techniques