[Cialug] LAMP/installers/distros

[Erik Anderson]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Todd Pierce <toddcpierce at gmail.com> wrote:
> My ultimate question is, is it normal these days for any distro to offer up
> installation of the LAMP bundle?  If the distro is Ubuntu, will the desktop
> version inquire whether you want that installed?

I'm not sure that it's "normal", but I see it from time to time.

My recommendation is to not rely on distro installers. Best practice
says to use some sort of configuration management system for this.
Don't get scared, it does not need to be complex. CMs like Ansible are
making this sort of thing really, really simple. You could create a
very simple Ansible playbook, a single file, which could be executed
on any server you come into contact with (more or less), that would
build up a functional LAMP stack.

IMHO, it's well worth working through the initial learning curve
(which isn't steep at all, at least with Ansible) to get your feet wet
with this stuff. The first time you do it, it'll take you three or
four times as long, but from then on out, you'll be able to get a LAMP
stack set up in a handful of minutes, reliably, without missing any
steps.

Feel free to send questions if you'd like - we're using Ansible a
*lot* at work these days for a variety of system deployment and
orchestration tasks.

-Erik