Ubuntu - Installing Lamp

[DextrousDave]

Hi all

I'm completely new to Linux, and I have just installed Ubuntu 12.10. Now I want to install a web server to host Wordpress. Now on all the tutorials I have watched to install lamp or apache
, they start off with the following: sudo apt-get install lamp-server^ . Now where does lamp-server come from? Is it preinstalled with Ubuntu, or do you first have to download it? Why isn't there an install path?

Any help would be appreciated

Thank you

[elija]

First of all, welcome to the forums.

I assume you are familiar with the Windows way, which is to download an installer from the Internet and choose where it gets installed. Linux does things a little differently. Most of the software you will ever need is held in repositories, think app store but much, much older.

In the Debian based distros, of which Ubuntu is one, software is packed up into .deb packages. These are installed using dpkg. apt-get is a command line front end to dpkg which will download the software from the repository, along with any dependencies (which are other bits of software needed) and install it for you. There are various GUI front ends also. Synaptic Package manager gives you very fine grained control and Ubuntu software centre which works at a higher level.

A light-hearted introduction to the Linux file system
dpkg
apt

[DextrousDave]

Thank you elija. But not sure how to implement this in a practical way. What do I need do do beforehand to get the sudo apt-get install lamp-server^ command to work?

[elija]

I've never heard of that package but you would simply open a teminal and run the command

sudo apt-get install lamp-server

and it should do everything else for you. If that package is not found then try the following

Open a terminal
Run the command

sudo tasksel

Enter your password when asked. It will look like you are typing nothing!
If tasksel is not found then install it with the command

sudo apt-get install taskel

and when completed run the first command again.
Select Lamp Server and then OK
You will be asked for a mySql root password

[DextrousDave]

Thank you Elija, I got it to work by doing what you said. Thank again.

[DextrousDave]

One more thing, why do some tutorials leave out the caret (^) at the end of the command? How do I close this thread/or mark it solved?
Thank you!

[elija]

That's kind of cool. I've just learnt something new.

To close / mark as solved there is a thread tools menu in the blue bar above the first post. The option is in there.