[sf-lug] Apache & UBU configurations

[Akkana Peck]

Eric W. Rasmussen writes:
> 2nd. What size should my /root partition be?  It looks like I am at
> 4.5Gb of 15Gb as I speak.  Maybe the following question might bring
> some clarity to my goals.

That's about what I usually run: I typically use 3-4G, but running out
is a drag, so if I have a big disk I allocate 10-16G for /.

> 3rd. I need to run a LAMP server for local web development.  Under
> Win this was easy using WAMP2.  But under Linux I am seeing that
> working with the /var/www/ directory is kind of a pain.  I have read
> that I might want to install a separate partition for /var. If so,

It depends. In what way is working with /var/www a pain?  What's
the problem you're trying to fix?

> what is a good size for multiple sites (I was thinking 10Gb). If I
> could have a /home/user/www directory so that read/write permissions
> aren't a problem and it is easily accessible, that would be even
> better.  Thoughts?

On a personal system that I use for web development, I make /var/www
a symlink to the appropriate directory under my home directory. The
files are owned by me but apache reads them just fine. On the real
web server where my personal site lives, it's the opposite: they
live on a filesystem that's just for web stuff, and I have a symlink
in my home directory that points there, but the files are still
owned and writable by me.

> 4th.  I hate trackpads on laptops and this is why I run with my
> external mouse.  Under Win, I could set the trackpad off whenever an
> external was plugged in.  Not so under Linux. I put this command
> [xinput set-int-prop "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad" "Device Enabled" 8
> 0] in my startup applications but it isn't activating.  I am getting
> tired of manually running the command every time I boot.  Thoughts?

That varies quite a bit from distro to distro, because X configuration
changes so much. This is Ubuntu? (I'm guessing from your subject
line since you don't actually say.) If you're using Gnome, there are
settings in the menus that are supposed to work. In Ubuntu Lucid
without Gnome, you may have to run a program after you start X;
I've never found a reliable way to disable the touchpad otherwise.
On many distros (including earlier Ubuntu versions) you can add
a section to xorg.conf to configure or disable the touchpad.

	...Akkana