Platforms, Servers, Databases, and PHP

PHP is truly cross-platform. It runs on the Windows operating system, most versions
of UNIX including Linux, and even the Macintosh. Support is provided for a range of
Web servers including Apache (itself open source and cross-platform), Microsoft
Internet Information Server, WebSite Pro, the iPlanet Web Server, and Microsoft's
Personal Web Server. The latter is useful if you want to test your scripts offline on a
Windows machine, although Apache can also be run on Windows.
You can also compile PHP as a standalone application. You can then call it from the
command line. In this book, we will concentrate on building Web applications, but
do not underestimate the power of PHP4 as a general scripting tool comparable to
Perl.
PHP is designed to integrate easily with databases. This feature is one of the factors
that make the language such a good choice for building sophisticated Web
applications. Many databases are directly supported, including Adabas D, InterBase,
Solid, dBASE, mSQL, Sybase, Empress, MySQL, Velocis, FilePro, Oracle, UNIX dbm,
Informix, and PostgreSQL. PHP also supports ODBC.

we will be using a combination of Linux, Apache, and MySQL.
All these are free to download and use, and can be installed relatively easily on a PC.
You can find out more about getting Linux for your computer at
<http://www.linux.org/help/beginner/distributions.html>. If you want to run Linux
on a Power PC, you can find information about LinuxPPC at
<http://www.linuxppc.org>.
MySQL, the database we will use, can be downloaded from
<http://www.mysql.com>. There are versions for many operating systems
including UNIX, Windows, and OS/2.
On the other hand, you can easily stick with Windows, NT, or MacOS. PHP is, after
all, a cross-platform scripting language.