I've installed php, mainly so I could stick a copy of phpost - web based pop mail client on it to try out (Very nice it is too). The install went fine - this was an install via Yast after all - and then I just had to stop and start apache*. PHP was then working serving within apache, so php scripts can be executed from within the same directory and via the same port as static pages.

*I've now discovered that you can use the "apachectl" application to do this:- log into a shell under root and type either 'apachectl start' or 'apchectl stop' (without the quotes).

I downloaded the MS Web Matrix asp.net tool yesterday, and I have to say i'm impressed. I get the feeling that it has been released because your average web developer does not have access to the prohibitively expensive Visual Studio.net. The tool includes a development server which can be used instead of IIS. Its a nice lightweight program with drag and drop GUI widgets, HTML, and code views and probably a bit more. The idea is that it is a community supported product - there's an associated forum at www.asp.net.

Jakarta Tomcat is now installed and works through port 8080.

I got Apache running this morning before work, I had already installed but hadn't figured out how to start it. In the end I found the command I needed in Running Linux (Matt Welsh, Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, Lar Kaufman -O'Reilly). I opened a shell with root permissions and typed the command:-

(location of httpd) -f (location of httpd.conf)
obviously replacing the (location of..) bracketted bits with the correct file paths

I haven't changed any of the configuration settings yet - i'm using the default settings provided in the suse distribution, which (unlike windows) means most features are disabled by default, so you can enable them as required when you understand what they do, rather than scramble frantically around trying to lock potentially vulnerable things off which you don't want or don't need.

Next Project: Tomcat (for running JSP?)

Here is a screengrab of the default KDE 3 desktop showing "Kmail", the KDE mail client and "everbuddy" an instant messaging client which supports several messaging protocols including msn messenger.

this is my first post via the newly working linux laptop (including network card!)... more later

You can pretty much ignore anything i've mentioned previously on this subject apart from the excellent pcmcia article I found, which led me in the right direction. To summarise, you need to know what the machine recognises your card as, then add a simple card description to a config file telling the machine which driver to use. As it turned out I didn't even need to install a driver.

It was actually a lot easier than I thought:-

1. I logged in as root and looked in var/log/messages to find out what my card was recognised as:-

"PCMCIA Fast-Ethernet"
manfid 0xffff, 0x1090

2. I then looked in etc/pcmcia/config and noticed that there were already several ASIX 88190 based cards in there which were using an already present driver called axnet_cs

3. I added the follwing card desription to etc/pcmcia/config:-

card "PCMCIA Fast-Ethernet"
version "PCMCIA", "Fast-Ethernet"
manfid 0xffff, 0x1090
bind "axnet_cs"

4. Rebooted, and noted the absence of the "low" beep which I had before which was telling me it couldn't find a driver.

5. Fired up konquerer and hey presto, I was on the internet. Note that I had already previously configured my internet connection to use PCMCIA and DHCP with my broadband connection