Things to take care of before installation starts
Before you start installation there are a couple of things you need to fix:
1. A server to host your site. Things to consider here are of course whether to use a Unix or Windows server. Unix is recommended, since you might have date issues with a Windows server. Different Hosting Companies offer different operating systems, so consider this when selecting your host.
2. Web server. Apache is the most popular web server and it is most probable to be used on your host. We also officially support nginx and most other webservers (e.g. Microsoft IIS) should work but we haven't tested them.
3. MySQL database. This is normally provided by your host. Recommended version is 4.1 or higher.
4. PHP distribution. If you don't have this installed, your web server wont be able to understand *.php files. Please make sure that your PHP version is 5.1 and above and you have following PHP extensions enabled: gd, mbstring, mysql, pcre, session.
5. FTP software to move files from your PC to your server. A suitable software is FileZilla or Core FTP Lite.
If you decide to select a hosting company , the things above is normally included in the package. If you decide to run your own server, the above is the minimum required. Details on how to install the items above is explained on their respective web page.
There are also 2 tools that are very useful, and hard to do without:
1. A database administration tool. Hosting companies normally have phpMyAdmin installed for web administration of your database. If you have the possibility to connect directly to your database, Navicat might be a better choice.
2. A php editor. You can find a list of them on Wikipedia.
The software that is mentioned above is the software we will use in the instructions that follows.
