WAMP v. LAMP and SQL question

Hello,

I'm a web designer and am very excited to have finally procured
approval to create some Apache servers for my corporate intranet. We
have a dedicated (microsoft) SQL server that holds a lot of company
info that many web apps I've developed reference, so being able to work
with that is a consideration.

I've read a lot of windows vs. linux posts in this newsgroup but none
addressed my question, which is...does the windows server give you an
advantage when it comes to adding it to an all MS domain using AD
(kerberos) for authentication? The sysadmins here have only MS
knowledge so that seems to make using Windows the obvious choice,
however, I am very willing to learn Ubuntu or something. I'm the only
web dev, I just want the best possible setup for web development,
however I'd rather spend time learning ROR and more Perl than Linux
server administration as I only have so much time in the day.

Many thanks in advance. For what it's worth I'm currently looking at
installing Apache using the XAMPP package for Windows.

Davide Bianchi wrote:

> BTW, this has nothing really to do with Apache or Configuration.
>

Thanks Davide.

I guess it is pre-configuration, as I'm trying to figure out how to
implement Apache. I'm sorry if this is the wrong group, any suggestion
as to where my query might be more appropriate?

Unfortunately I don't know what I want, as this is unknown territory
for me. I was hoping someone on the list with more experience might
offer some insight.

mahalie wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm a web designer and am very excited to have finally procured
> approval to create some Apache servers for my corporate intranet. We
> have a dedicated (microsoft) SQL server that holds a lot of company
> info that many web apps I've developed reference, so being able to
> work with that is a consideration.
>
> I've read a lot of windows vs. linux posts in this newsgroup but none
> addressed my question, which is...does the windows server give you an
> advantage when it comes to adding it to an all MS domain using AD
> (kerberos) for authentication? The sysadmins here have only MS
> knowledge so that seems to make using Windows the obvious choice,
> however, I am very willing to learn Ubuntu or something. I'm the only
> web dev, I just want the best possible setup for web development,
> however I'd rather spend time learning ROR and more Perl than Linux
> server administration as I only have so much time in the day.

Your reasoning seems to tend toward Windows.
Personally, for my specific needs, I'd choose a linux variant. However, as
your whole network is a Microsoft network and the knowladge is there, go
ahead and use a Windows Server variant. It has the advantage that when
serverside languages are being used to modify documents, it'll be a lot
easier to modify/create MS Office documents/spreadsheets/etc with server
side languages, if MS Office is what's used there.

> Many thanks in advance. For what it's worth I'm currently looking at
> installing Apache using the XAMPP package for Windows.

XAMPP is OK for starters. On a live server, you'll quickly want to have
your own custom Apache install though. And take advantage of that MSSQL
server. If your company is using MSSQL, that's what the server should use.
AFAIK (I'm not sure) XAMPP comes with MySQL support (and install), and not
MSSQL, so you'll have to tinker with it.
--
Rik Wasmus