Hi all, Looking to get some information as to start up my Localhost install. I've got a site that is 100% running and I've been tasked with taking over maintenance for it. The person who developed it is has retired and is no longer in the capacity to work with us.

To start with I'd like to run the site in a localhost environment for a while and start doing updates there before I do the live version. The site is running 6.x and I need to get it to 6.y. I've been doing a LOT of reading but am still confused about one thing. How to I get a localhost environment to run the “same” version of SQL/PHP that my server/website is running? And is this even important? Am I over thinking this part of it? All of the localhost install packages I've installed are different than what we are running. Also what is the best localhost package to run? I see there is XAMPP, WAMPP, LAMP, etc. I primarily run windows however would be willing to do this on a Linux box if that was “best” (although there might be more of a learning curve.

Here is what our site is running:

From our site Drupal status pages:
MySQL database = 5.0.91
PHP = 5.2.17

From Website host control panel:
MySQL database = 5.0.91-log
PHP = 5.3.13 -----Why are these different versions????

Thanks in advance for any help provided. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go along.

Comments

deltaf508’s picture

Anyone have any advice for me?

gapa’s picture

I would totally suggest Aquia-dev-desktop. It has own control panel and there you can change PHP versions.
And I assume that it shows different versions for PHP, because your installation for Drupal runs on different PHP version that your control panel uses (by default). This is sometimes because hosting provider upgrade PHP version but still support old (major) versions.
Hope it helps.

deltaf508’s picture

Thank you very much. I've heard of Aquia, but I've thought it was something designed for 'their' proprietary build of Drupal? Do have this idea of them wrong? lol. I have been installing rev after rev. of Wampp and Xampp to get the right combination of PHP/SQL but they never match up.

I will check into it....thank you!

VM’s picture

yes. your idea of the Acquia DAMP stack is incorrect. There isn't a proprietary version of Drupal.

VM’s picture

It's unlikey that you will run into any issues with Drupal 6 and PHP 5.3. Depending on the version of D6 you are updating form, you may get a warning about ereg being deprecated. However, that will be corrected when you update core.

deltaf508’s picture

Thank you. So if I run a version of XAMPP that is close (but maybe a rev higher) I should be alright with Drupal 6? I was wondering that, but want this to be a "real representation" of my live site (with hopefully no errors to confuse me even more) since I am learning this.

Thank you!

VM’s picture

realistically, you should be seeking out a new host as PHP 5.2.x is no longer support by the PHP community and the branch reached end of life in 2011. see: http://php.net/releases/index.php

Drupal 6 doesn't have much lifetime left to it either as it will be unsupported when Drupal 8 is released.