thelinuxlink.net

Looking for some advice. I notice the TLLTS crew all have blogs. I would like to add a blog to my website, but I'm looking for something easy to set up. I mean really really easy. I don't know sql or php, so I would like something that I can just set up and run.

I'm running apache on my Linux box and webserver right now, but nothing else. So right now the website is simple html. I currently use Kanotix as recommended by Patrick.

Any advice on easy to set up blog software to complement my static html pages?

Can I do the install through a simple "apt-get"?

Can I have more than one blog served from the same machine as the static html site? (For example, a blog page for announcements, a blog page for essays, a blog page with links to audio files or pictures, so that I'm running three different pages from one set of software?)

Or would it be easier just to have a link going from the static web pages to a free "blogger" account?


Thanks for all suggestions,
mowestusa

Perhaps nanoblogger:http://nanoblogger.sourceforge.net/

I believe it is completly bash driven.

mowestusa wrote:Looking for some advice. I notice the TLLTS crew all have blogs. I would like to add a blog to my website, but I'm looking for something easy to set up. I mean really really easy. I don't know sql or php, so I would like something that I can just set up and run.

I'm running apache on my Linux box and webserver right now, but nothing else. So right now the website is simple html. I currently use Kanotix as recommended by Patrick.

Any advice on easy to set up blog software to complement my static html pages?

Can I do the install through a simple "apt-get"?

Can I have more than one blog served from the same machine as the static html site? (For example, a blog page for announcements, a blog page for essays, a blog page with links to audio files or pictures, so that I'm running three different pages from one set of software?)

Or would it be easier just to have a link going from the static web pages to a free "blogger" account?


Thanks for all suggestions,
mowestusa

The easiest way is to do what Dan suggested and use a blogging service. I'm sure there are some limitations as far as bandwidth. I decided to do my blog on a machine in my house because I wanted to learn how to do it from start to finish. I knew I wasn't going to get a ton of hits (<1000 a day) so the bandwidth over my cable modem wasn't a huge concern. I also wanted total control of it. I have Debian installed on a dedicated box. The box is not very powerful at all (400mhz Emachine with 64 meg of memory). Not exactly top of the line but it does the job fine. I have the whole LAMP setup . For the blogging software I use wordpress:
http://wordpress.org/

It was fairly easy to setup and the interface for posting and managing the site is real nice and easy. I don't think there is any blogging software available via apt-get. If someone knows of any such software please post the details.

I know Dan and Allan use bblog:
http://www.bblog.com/

If you do decide to host the box yourself remember this:
- Some ISP's are real pricks and don't want you to run a "server". They sometimes block port 80 so you may have to run apache on another port
- Some ISP's monitor your bandwidth usage and will charge you more automatically if you go over without warning you. Find out the details of your service agreeement
- You should at least have a 2 way cable modem or DSL. For the longest time my connectectin was a 1 way cable modem
- You should probably run a dedicated box. It doesn't have to be ultra powerful unless you're planning on getting a lot of traffic and running an internet porn business. If that's the case you'll need a a lot of bandwidth. Commercial sites are probably better served by dedicated hosting services
- Run a stable server system. Kanotix is great but it's primarily a desktop distro based on Debian unstable. I'd go with Debian stable, Slackware or even Gentoo.

Thanks Patrick,

My ISP is great. I talked to the tech and he said they don't really care if I'm running a server from my house. My website is very low hits. I would be surprised if it would ever get more than 100 hits a day. This is fine because the website is meant to serve information to a very small group of people that I want to share information with. Nothing personal on there, it is public information, but I don't think the content will attract a wider audience.

I have a machine I can dedicate to it. I was thinking of not using my dedicated computer right now, until I get things set up on my desktop, learn what I need to learn, and then set up a dedicated webserver with a Pentium 500, 128 megs of Ram and a 10 gig hard drive.

I believe you can get "Wordpress" with "apt-get". There are lots of content managers that you can get with "apt-get" so that is why I was thinking about an "apt-get" setup.

If I use apt-get on a debian system is it easy to set up a LAMP server?

Apt-get should set up everything automatically right?

How much set up did you do after installing Wordpress?

Do I need to learn sql, or is all that set up automatically?

Also is it easy to do multiple blog pages like I described above?

Thanks for the help,

mowestusa

mowestusa wrote: If I use apt-get on a debian system is it easy to set up a LAMP server? Apt-get should set up everything automatically right?

Yes, it should give you a basic apache, php, mysql setup with the default "welcome to apache" home page.

mowestusa wrote:How much set up did you do after installing Wordpress?

The wordpress web site has instructions on how to setup the blog software. Unpack the wordpress software in the appropriate apache directory and create the mysql database used by the blog software. Edit a couple wordpress config files. Once you get the basic software setup the admin is very easy. Posting to and editing your blog is very simple with wordpress.

mowestusa wrote:Do I need to learn sql, or is all that set up automatically?

You'll need the basics on creating a database and admin ID. I think it's covered in the wordpress documentation. It's not necessary for day to day use but it couldn't hurt.

mowestusa wrote:Also is it easy to do multiple blog pages like I described above?

Not sure, I haven't had the need to do multiple blog pages.

Finally you'll need to have DNS service for your blog address. Linc and myself use this free service because we have dynamic IP addresses:
http://www.dyndns.org/services/dns/dyndns/

They have a selection of free domain names to pick from:
http://www.dyndns.org/services/dns/dyndns/domains.html

Or you can pay to register your own web address.

If you go that route and have a dynamic IP address you'll need to install a package that links your machines dynamic IP to the DNS service. It was pretty painless to setup.

Finally, don't forget to pop a hole in your firewall to redirect traffic for port 80 to your web server.

Let us know how it goes.

Well, I have half of that set up already.

On Kanotix I have Apache installed and running on port 80. I have a dns service through no-ip.com and a web address. I have the client ip checker to deal with the dynamic ip address. I'm forwarding port 80 to the router's assigned ip address. So I've seen the welcome page and replaced it with my static website already. I just need to add a blog page or two to it.

I just don't have Wordpress or another blogging software set up. I'm looking into Wordpress and nanoblogger that Dann suggested. Nanoblogger takes little to no overhead and it doesn't need a sql database running because the blogs are saved in a flat file.

When I get some time, I will have to take it for a spin. Maybe next week.

Thanks for the input,

Steve
mowestusa