Installing openSUSE-12.2 on Oracle Virtual Machine (VM)

"The openSUSE Project is an Free/Libre Software community developing a Linux distribution named openSUSE. The project is sponsored by a number of companies and individuals, most notably SUSE, AMD, B1 Systems, Heinlein Support and IP Exchange" -- The OpenSUSE Project

This is a step-by-step guide to install openSUSE in Oracle VM.


Before we start, get a copy of "openSuSE 12.2 GNOME Live CD (iso) i686" from this link.

1. Start Oracle VM and click on the New button.

2. Input openSuSE in the Name text field. Usually Oracle VM would automatically search for its version upon typing the name of the OS, but in case it doesn’t, select openSUSE from the Version combo box field. Click the Next button after filling up the necessary fields.

3. Set the memory size to 1024 MB (roughly 1GB) RAM, and click the Next button.

4. Select Create a virtual hard drive now, and click the Create button.

5. Select VDI, and click on the Next button.

6. Select Dynamically allocated, and click on the Next button.

7. By default, the allocated vdd space is set to 8.00 GB, you can set it to any value you are comfortable with, then click on the Create button. Also you can choose where to place your .vdi / virtual drive if you wish. Just click on the Folder with the green caret to choose where to save your .vdi.

8. Now, click on the Start button.

9. If this prompt pops up, click on the folder icon at the right and select your openSuSE 12.2 GNOME Live CD i686 iso file and press Start.

10. Press any key to halt the automatic boot sequence/countdown. Select Installation and press Enter.

11. Upon reaching this screen, you can select the language and the keyboard layout you prefer, by default it is both set to English (US). Click on the arrow button at the lower right corner of the screen to continue.

12. This screen displays the timezone settings, you can change it by clicking and selecting from the Region and the Time Zone combo boxes. Once you’ve selected, click on the Next button.

13. In this screen you can select what type of disk partitioning you prefer. (click on the more link if you wish to know more about which to select. For this guide, since we are installing on a VDI which is set to 8GB (as stated earlier), we are not going to Import any partitions from other Linux systems nor are we going to create a new partition (over the default partition). So click on the Next button to proceed.

14. Fill in the User’s Full Name, Username, Password and Confirm Password text fields here. It is important that you choose a username and password that is easy to remember.

15. This screen displays the summary / details of your preferred installation of openSuSE. If you are satisfied with these – click on the Install button.

16. Once the installation is finished, this prompt would appear, just click on the Reboot Now button.

17. Once the green installer screen reappears, click on any key, and select Boot from Hard Disk.

18. When you reach this screen, you have successfully installed OpenSuSE on your Oracle VM! You may now sign in.  (Note: if SuSE prompts to eject the installer iso from the CD Rom, please press eject – so that the next time you would boot up OpenSuse, the system would boot from the virtual drive, and not from the installer iso.).

 

Also click on the Devices tab (on Oracle VM),  and under CD/DVD Devices, uncheck the ISO file.

Installing Drupal 7 on centOS 6.3

Drupal is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL. It is used for personal blogging, data storage, knowledge management, political and business sites.

This guide is about installing and configuring Drupal 7 on centOS 6.3.


Requirements (before starting the steps):
- Install LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) by following the steps found in this link.
- Install the REMI repository by following step 2 in this link, alternatively if you want to install phpMyAdmin, you can do so by following the steps on the said link, but it is not required for this guide.

 Once the aforementioned requirements are installed you may now proceed with this guide.

1. On your terminal, log in as admin / root, by typing su.

2. Type cd /var/www/html/ to go to the apache directory.

3. Download the Drupal 7 package by typing this command wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-7.0.tar.gz

4. Create a folder for drupal by typing mkdir drupal

5. Extract the contents of your drupal 7 package by typing tar xzf drupal-7.0.tar.gz

6. Move the contents of drupal-7.0 to the drupal directory (for simplicity's sake later on), by typing mv drupal-7.0/* drupal

7. Remove the drupal-7.0 directory and the drupal package by typing rm -fr drupal-7.0 drupal-7.0.tar.gz (optional, but you can do this, so that your apache folder won't be messy later on).

8. Now let us start with the installation proper, first go the /sites/default directory by typing cd /var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/

9. Duplicate the file named 'default.settings.php' to 'settings.php' by typing cp -p default.settings.php settings.php (because drupal requires a file called settings.php.. by default - settings.php is named default.settings.php, thus we have to duplicate and rename it to settings.php -- at the same time not deleting default.settings.php -- in case your drupal cms would go nuts in the future).

10. Update the permissions (read/write) of the directory /var/www/html/drupal/sites/ by typing the command chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_rw_t /var/www/html/drupal/sites/ 

11. Also update the permissions of the apache directory by typing the command chown -R apache.apache /var/www/html

12. Create the drupal database in mysql by typing mysql and typing create database drupal;

13. Go to your browser and access Drupal 7 by typing localhost/drupal/ the screen below will appear. In this selection I'm choosing standard (it's your decision what you'd pick :D), then click on Save and continue (until you reach the Verify requirements part).

14. If you encounter this error - do the following steps:

a. Go to your terminal and type yum --enablerepo=remi install php-xml

b. Restart your apache server by typing service httpd restart

c. Go back to your browser and hit refresh, this screen should appear:

15. Fill up the Database name text box with whatever database name you have assigned for drupal in step 12 (in our case it should be drupal). Also input your root username and password. Click on the Save on continue button to proceed.

16. Fill up the text fields in the Configure site part and press save and continue.

17. If you reach this screen, you have successfully installed Drupal for CentOS 6!

Installing phpmyadmin on centOS 6.3

phpMyAdmin is a free and open source tool used to handle mySQL database functionalities via web browser. Creating, editing or dropping databases, fields or tables can be done in this tool with a click of a button (instead of typing long queries).

This is a simple guide intended to install phpMyAdmin version 3.5.4 on CentOS 6.3.
First of all, you have to have LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL and PHP) installed and configured, if you haven't done so yet, follow the steps in this link, before proceeding here. :) 


1. In your terminal access root priveleges by typing su and type yum update to update your system. (though you could do this step later on. but it is advisable that your system is updated, before everything else)

2. Install the REMI repository by typing the following commands: rpm –Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-7.noarch.rpm and rpm -Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm

3. Now, it’s time to install phpmyadmin, type yum --enablerepo=remi install phpMyAdmin (take note that it's phpMyAdmin, not phpmyadmin -- because installing phpmyadmin <- with that spelling, will download an older version of phpMyAdmin... installing phpMyAdmin <- with that spelling, will download and install a recent version of the software)

4. Type service httpd restart to restart your apache server.

5. Go to your browser and type localhost/phpmyadmin , if you see this screen you have successfully installed phpmyadmin to your system. 

6. On the unlikely event that you couldn’t log in to phpmyadmin because of an error (#1045), go to your terminal, access root privileges (type su), and reset your mysql password by typing the following command mysqladmin –u root password <newpassword> (where <newpassword is your new password).

Installing LAMP in centOS 6.3

 

"LAMP is a solution stack of free, open source software. The acronym LAMP refers to the first letters of Linux (operating system), Apache HTTP Server, MySQL (database software) and PHP -- principal components to build a viable general purpose web server." -- LAMP wiki article

Though, the letters M and P could also stand for MariaDB, Perl and Python respectively, this was made as a guide to install and configure Apache, MySQL and PHP on centOS 6.3.

Installing Apache webserver

1. Go to Applications > System Tools > Terminal

2. Access root privileges by typing su and pressing enter afterwards. Input your root password.

3. Type cd .. until you get to your root directory.

4. Type the following command yum install httpd and press enter.

5. Type the command service httpd start to start your apache server, or type service httpd restart to restart your apache server.

6. Type yum install nano to install the nano command (nano is used to edit the contents or source codes of files).

7. Type cd /var/www/html . Type nano index.html . Type any text you want in the field (this is the text which will appear if your apache server / localhost is working). Press Ctrl + X to save your file.

8. Configure your system to start Apache on boot by typing the following command: chkconfig --levels 235 httpd on

9. Restart your apache server by typing service httpd restart.

10. Now, go to your web browser, and type localhost. If you see the text you have saved in your index.html file, you have successfully installed and configured your apache server. Congratulations. 

Installing MySQL in centOS 
1. Go to Applications > System Tools > Terminal

2. Access root privileges by typing su and pressing enter afterwards. Input your root password.

3. Type cd .. until you get to your root directory.

4. Type the command yum install mysql mysql-server . If prompted: input your desired mysql root username, and password, else proceed to the next step.

5. Type the command chkconfig --levels 235 mysqld on so that mySql would start on boot, and type service mysqld start.


6. Type the following commands mysql -u root , to access mysql, and type the following command: SET PASSWORD FOR ‘root’@’localhost’ = PASSWORD(‘<password>’) where <password> is the new password for the root user. 

Installing PHP in centOS
1. Go to Applications > System Tools > Terminal

2. Access root privileges by typing su and pressing enter afterwards. Input your root password.

3. Type cd .. until you get to your root directory.

4. Input the following command yum install php


5. Check whether PHP has been installed or configured properly in your system, by doing the following steps:
  a. Type cd var/www/html/
  b. Create a file entitled info.php by typing the following command: nano info.php
  c. Place the following script in the file: <?php phpinfo(); ?> and save the file.
  d. Access localhost/info.php in your browser. If this screen appears, you have successfully installed PHP on your system.