Creating my first blog
Being the CTO of my company, I decided it was time to start my own blog. One aspect of the company is that we host several websites, and therefore, I wanted to be able to host my own blog versus paying someone else to host it.
The next decision was what tool to use. I talked with several people from my company that already had blogs setup, and based upon their feedback, I decided that the platform of choice should be WordPress. Now here is where it gets interesting. First thing I want to point out is that I am a Windows guy by nature. I understand Linux and have an Ubuntu server up and running, however if you were to ask anyone that I work with, I am a pro Windows. However for my blog, I wanted to setup the famouse LAMP box to support it. I chose to start with Ubuntu as my linux platform since I already had it up and running for a different purpose. I created a virtual machine, and downloaded and installed Ubuntu Server. As part of this I chose the LAMP option in the setup. Upon completion of the setup, which ran fairly quickly, I realized that I still needed to install the GNOME desktop to get the WYSYWIG desktop working. So I did a quick google search and found the commands to run. 4 hours later, I had the WYSWIG up and running. However, upon completion, I found 55 patches/updates that needed to be applied (and they say Windows is bad). After applying the patches, I then realized I had to install an interface for both Apache and MYSQL. So much for an easy install.
So to summarize where I am at this point, I have had to do the following:
- Create a virtual machine. We are a VMWare shop
- Download and install the lates version of Ubuntu server
- Install GNOME/Ubuntu Desktop ontop of my server
- Install a GUI interface for Apache
- Install a GUI interface for MYSQL
- Apply 55 patches/updates
The next step was to download an install WordPress. I followed the instructions as they were layed out on the website and got WordPress up and running on my newly created server. I hit my next issue. For some reason, the application was running slow. After some searching on the web, I found I needed to do 2 things. The first was to change how much memory php was allowed to use, by manually editing the php.ini file. The other item was that there was a bug within WordPress and to fix this I had to modify a different php file.
So finally after two days of installs, updates and edits, I got my blog up and running and entered my first post. Maybe it’s me, but I thought Linux was easier to use than Windows.