LAMP
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- Note: this article discusses "LAMP" the acronym and related concepts; for discussion of the light-source, see lamp.
The acronym LAMP refers to a set of free software programs commonly used together to run dynamic Web sites or servers:
- Linux, the operating system;
- Apache, the Web server;
- MySQL, the database management system (or database server);
- Perl, PHP, and/or Python, scripting languages.
Though the originators of these open source programs did not design them all to work specifically with each other, the combination has become popular because of its low cost and because of the ubiquity of its components (which come bundled with most current Linux distributions). When used in combination they represent a solution stack of technologies that facilitate electronic activity. Other such stacks include Java/J2EE and Microsoft's .NET architecture.
The scripting component of the LAMP stack has its origins in the CGI web interfaces that became popular in the early 1990s. This technology allows the user of a web browser to execute a program on the web server, and to thereby receive dynamic as well as static content. programmers used scripting languages with these programs because of their ability to manipulate text streams easily and efficiently, even when they originate from disparate sources. For this reason system designers often referred to such scripting systems as glue languages.
Michael Kunze coined the acronym LAMP in an article for the German computing magazine c't in 1998 (12/98, page 230). The article aimed to show that a bundle of free software could provide a viable alternative to commercial packages. Knowing about the IT-world's love of acronyms, Kunze came up with LAMP as a marketing-like term to popularize the use of free software.
O'Reilly and MySQL AB have popularized the term among English-speakers. Indeed, MySQL AB has since based most of its marketing efforts on the popularity of the LAMP stack. Other projects and vendors came up with variants of the term, including:
- LAPP (substituting PostgreSQL for MySQL)
- WAMP (substituting Microsoft Windows for Linux)
- MAMP (http://www.mamp.info/en/home/) (substituting Macintosh for Linux)
- LAMJ for JSP/servlet
- and simply AMP (omitting the operating system; Apple Computer favors this variant).
Some employ the term LAMP generically to describe such alternative systems rather than make a new acronym, using it to denote the contrast between such systems and a unified web application development environment (such as ASP, .NET or J2EE).
As an example, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, runs software in what one could characterize as a LAMP environment. Wikipedia uses MediaWiki software, developed primarily under Linux, with content served with Apache HTTPD server, content stored in a MySQL database, and program logic implemented in PHP.
LAMP may also refer to an (apparently obsolete) movie player for Linux, the Linux Animation and Movie Player (http://pauillac.inria.fr/lamp/), as well as to MIT's Library Access to Music Project [1] (http://lamp.mit.edu/).
External links
- ONLamp.com (http://www.onlamp.com/), from O'Reilly & Associates
- LAMPware.org (http://www.lampware.org/), LAMP Community Site
- Build Web Interface to Database (http://www.iki.fi/karvinen/lamp-linux-apache-mysql-php.html) - LAMP Tutorial
- Linuxforum.com LAMP (http://www.linuxforum.com/lamp-manual.php), Element Background Info
- Web (http://www.zzoss.com/projects/installer) SF (http://sourceforge.net/projects/zzossinstaller/) ZZ/OSS LAMP Installer
- LAMPPIX (http://lamppix.tinowagner.com/) A CD-bootable LAMP server
- XAMPP (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/) Apache HTTPD bundle with MySQL, Perl, and PHP
- LAMPStack (http://www.bitrock.com/download_lamp_download.html) Easy to install LAMP distributionda:LAMP
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