Open Source and the Magic LAMP

I’m going to go back in time to when Apple came out with their first server OS – Mac OS X Server.

Back then I was a graphic / web design / 3D animation creative type. I left a secure but soul crushing job at a military subcontractor creating 3D models of F-14 and F-18 fighter jets for training CD-ROMs. My husband was ramping the business up and started getting more orders for websites than he could handle.

We offered 3D animation, CD ROMs, standard HTML sites with JavaScript contact forms and Flash Animation. Those orders turned into E-Commerce sites. We found working with E-Commerce Vendors on third party hosting providers horribly limiting.

When Apple first came out with Mac OS X Server and touted it as being so easy a newb graphic moron like me could manage a Web Server with it I was sold.

I spent money I hardly had on a server with the OS co-located in a datacenter an hour and a half drive from my apartment.

What followed was a crash course in Linux Server Administration the hard way. Along the way I learned:

• Mac OS X Server cant be Administered Remotely (at the time). I ditched it for Red Hat.
• OPEN SOURCE – OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD FREE SOFTWARE
• named / BIND / DNS – So thats why my site takes two days to show up
• Permissions / users and user groups – No you can’t fix pesky permissions messages by typing ‘chmod -R 777 /’
• Sendmail – Email management = no sleep.
• Webmin – A GUI to manage everything.
• Apache – vi httpd.conf
• Content Management Solutions – OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD