Checking your environment

Before installing the open source software, it's convenient to check your Linux environment to see if you already have any of these components installed—Apache, Tomcat, Java SE Development Kit, or MySQL. As there are so many Linux distributions around, the installation process for Apache, the Java JDK, MySQL, and Tomcat depends on what packages you selected when installing Linux. For example, I am running my official Apache Roller blog on a Slackware Linux PC, but you can use any distribution of your choice. According to DistroWatch (http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major), the most popular ones at the time of writing this book are Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Mandriva, Mint, PCLinuxOS, Slackware, Gentoo, and CentOS. Each distribution has its pros and cons. If you're new to Linux, I definitely recommend you to go for Linux Ubuntu. In fact, I used Ubuntu when writing this chapter's material, so you can just go and grab a copy from the Ubuntu official...