total idiot with no clue

[heartless]

excuse me for being a dummy, but I cant help it, I am pretty much clueless when it comes to stuff like this.

I am an average person with basic computer skills - not a programmer or developer or the like, I rely heavily on other people's knowledge and skills in that department.

My story - I am looking at "opening" an online store using OSCommerce, but would like to "test drive" it so to speak before going live. On the OSC site someone else asked about doing just that and it was recommended to them to use XAMPP to do this - with very little else said about your product.
So off I go to download XAMPP - sounds like a great deal.

WHOA! Ok, here is where I get Lost. downloaded XAMPP, no problem, "opened" the package - opened the "readme"txt...uh-oh...i may have made a mistake here...it says in the readme.txt to unpack on a USB drive - dont have one....ok coach, so now what??

I try reading further, looking to get more information out of the file...uh, hmmm, all greek to me.

I would love to learn more about this kind of stuff, but the problem I run into is that 99.9% of the information that is out there is written for/geared towards those that have at least a tiny clue - i dont have even that! I can Google all day and understand maybe 1/10,000th of what comes up...

All i really want to do is be able to emulate an online store for testing purposes before going live with it.

My system is Win98SE (yeah, I know, ancient), 1.3Ghz processor, 512Gig memory, two HD's - "C" for operating sys and programs, "D" for storage - pretty basic stuff, no special partitions or anything...
Can I even USE XAMPP on my 'puter? or can I run it from, say, a memory card?? have several SD memory cards available to me (what size would be recommended??)

Please be gentle with me. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

(ps: i did try a search for "new user" but got nothing on the english side...there was something in another language that looked like it could be interesting, but I am not multi-lingual and could not read it)

Thanks in advance.
sign me "Clueless"

[heartless]

Oooo, just had a thought - I have an old HD - only 6.4G - if I installed that into my system, and gave it a "high" letter designation - would that work for my purposes???

Thanks again...

[Wiedmann]

I am looking at "opening" an online store using OSCommerce, ... My system is Win98SE

MySQL 5.0 does not support this OS.

[heartless]

MySQL 5.0 does not support this OS.

so, what you are saying is "don't bother trying??"

[heartless]

so no one else has anything to say, huh?

no alternative suggestions, no nothing??

ok, if thats the way it is, thats the way it is, i guess. everyone has just been so helpful. Thanks.

I guess I remain "clueless" and can add "frustrated" as well.

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday Season...

[Scory]

so no one else has anything to say, huh?

Ok, once more: Win98se is not supported by Xampp.

Install a newer Windows or a Linux OS.

Better now?

[Izzy]

What the previous posters have suggested is that the current and immediate past versions of XAMPP are not compatible with your OS version - so you would be wasting your time trying to install and run OsC.

There is a work around though and that is to install a much older version of XAMPP that may be compatible with your OS.

The Archive Of XAMPP Versions is available as a link at the top of the XAMPP for Windows home page, had you been able to spot it when you read that page - you did read that page didn't you?

You may want to start with a very old version rather than one that is near to the current 1.6.4 version, but don't ask which one, as you will have to resort to trial and error in your case.

BTW - please try and use a short informative description of your issue in the topic subject line not your obvious current state of mind or you will more than likely be ignored, as was evident in this thread - also be patient, as this forum relies on the free time available to the forum's unpaid volunteer members to provide support for other members - bouncing messages and sarcastic impatient replies will normally be ignored and drastically reduce your forum reputation for any future issues you may require help with.


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[heartless]

Izzy - Thank you for the information you have imparted. It is much more informative than "it wont work with your OS".

Apparently I did miss the "Archive" link - I apologize for that. But - XAMPP 1.6.5 DOES list Win98, ME in the system requirements. Granted WinXP is also listed and noted as "recommended" but nowhere did I see anything that said XAMPP 1.6.5 (or any components therein) would NOT be compatible with Win98. But enough of that...

I did find, and install an external USB HD on my system and installed XAMPP on that. The "unpacking" went fine, and I was able to start Apache, and MySQL. I have not actually tried to DO anything with it yet, other than look around a little, but all seemed to be working just fine.

I am off to look for more information to feed my brain!

[LooseCannon]

Hello heartless and welcome to here.

Some PHP and MySQL references that I found helpful when starting web setup stuff:
http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp
http://webmonkey.com/webmonkey/backend/databases/

Check out other parts of those sites as well. You've a very large topic to study!

A more general web development forum:
http://webxpertz.net/forums/index.php

Note that XAMPP deals with PHP and MySQL, so overlaps a lot of general web site stuff. However, The Apache Friends Forum is really aimed just at XAMPP itself.

Enjoy!

ps. +1 on Izzy's '.. please try and use a short informative description of your issue in the topic subject line ..' when you start a thread.

[heartless]

LooseCannon - Thank you VERY much for the links!! (and for the welcome)

Yes, I have a LOT of reading to do, and then read again and experiment a little!

oh, and I will be sure to use a more "informative" thread title in the future.

[next]

wow, what a catch on my end !I'm at the exact same stage as you are heartless, also planning on opening up my store in 2008, please drop me a line haosmark@gmail.com ,the process should be easier if we work through start up process together, dont you think ?

My question:
Ok, so i installed XAMPP, what next? how do i test the simplest script? I'm reading the official PHP documentation, what they said is:

Create a file named hello.php and put it in your web server's root directory (DOCUMENT_ROOT) with the following content:
blah blah blah, some code

Where is web servers root directory? I tried experimenting, but with no luck. And which one is my server, MySQL or Apache?

Sorry guys, i'm a total noob to PHP. I have some experience with Javascript, C++ and AHK, but they are soooooooooooo different in the start up stage.
Thanks for your help and Merry Christmas!

[KallistaAEnvarou]

The document root is in xampp\htdocs. Just open up Notepad, for example, and save a file called hello.php. Note: If you use NotePad, it will default to hello.php.txt. You can override this default by saving with the title "hello.php" (yes, with the quotes) or by selecting "All Files" from the drop down (though sometimes the latter doesn't work).

The main problem with the regular version of Notepad is that it doesn't use colour-coding. If you want colour-coding, you can use Notepad Plus, or you can use jEdit. jEdit doesn't have a default extension.

Once you've done all that, make sure you run xampp_start.exe and then test http://localhost/hello.php in your browser, or you can use http://127.0.0.1/hello.php as well.

If you'd like to use folders to separate your files from those of xampp and don't want to always type localhost/folder/page.php, see this topic.

[next]

KallistaAEnvarou Thanks!

[LooseCannon]

Hello and welcome Next.

For your information, when asking your own, new question, it's usually best to start a new thread. Not always, but please think about that next time. Don't worry if it's just a one liner or seems very simple/basic. It can just be much easier to read, answer, follow up and search on later.

Happy learning.