Xampp: PHP + MySQL + Apache + Perl (and other stuff...) for Free!

If you are a beginner, experienced or advanced coder you can find XAMPP really useful for your development job related to PHP or Perl scripting.

XAMPP offers a very easy to install environment in which you can create quickly your next web site.

Here you can find the list of the FREE software packages included in XAMPP: Apache HTTPD, MySQL, PHP, Perl, FileZilla FTP Server, phpMyAdmin OpenSSL, Freetype, Webalizer, mod_perl, eAccelerator, mcrypt, SQLite, Mercury Mail Transport System, fake sendmail for windows, FPDF Class



After the installation of XAMPP you can load all the service with the "xampp_start.exe" command and in few seconds all the services will be up.

When the services are started, you can browse on "http://localhost/xampp/index.php" to access the control panel of XAMPP.



On the Status page you can watch the status of every service and see what is actually de-activated.



If you click on the PhpMyAdmin link in the menu, a new windows opens with the great PhpMyAdmin database development tools.
With PhpMyAdmin it is possible to generate automatically all the SQL scripts to operate in an easy way on the MySQL database: you can create a new database, define new tables and references between primary keys and foreign keys.

Another great feature of XAMPP is the chance to quickly switch from a PHP5 installation to a PHP4 installation. This is really useful when you need to test your script on both version to identify eventual problems that may occur.

You can get XAMPP for Windows through this link, for the Linux version you can choose this second link, but really on Linux there are many other chances to get a full installation of the "LAMP" package, so you can usually use the ready package in your distribution.

Have fun.
Fabio