Chapter 2. Getting Started with GeoServer

Congratulations on your choice to take your data to the world with GeoServer. GeoServer can be installed on many different operating systems, since it's a Java application. You can run it on any kind of operating system for which exists a Java virtual machine. It takes advantage of multi-threaded operations, and supports 64-bit modern operating systems.

This chapter will cover, in detail, the steps that will bring you to a successful installation. Though we will explain the whole process in detail, don't be afraid. As soon as you finish reading it, you will have your running copy of GeoServer. The steps will be illustrated in two scenarios, an Ubuntu 12.04 machine and a Windows 7 machine. We chose these two as they cover the majority of users. Besides Ubuntu being a Debian derivative, the installation process can be easily reproduced on other similar distributions, for example, Debian or Linux Mint.

We'll talk about the advanced settings most useful...