XAMPP All-in-one-webserver

XAMPP is a web development tool containing the essential applications in rapidly deploying web applications. XAMPP contains thew following:
1) Apache HTTP Server,
2) MySQL Database Server
3) ProFTPD Server
4) PHP
5) Perl
6) phpMyAdmin
7) OpenSSL

Xampp logo

Initially XAMPP stands for X-, A-pache, M-ySQL, P-HP, P-erl. XAMPP may be installed on most of the operating systems namely, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Sun Solaris. In Linux XAMPP is called LAMPP but to avoid the misconception it was renamed to XAMPP for Linux. The main feature of XAMPP is its one click server deploy and the easy PHP version switch. XAMPP was initially intended as a web developer tool so it is designed to be free from all restrictions. However, there are ways to secure XAMPP if you are planning to use it in a production environment.

A number of packages are also bundled with XAMPP.
Graphics: libjpeg, libpng, GD, ncurses
Database: SQLite, gdbm, FreeTDS
PHP: Pear, ezpdf, TURCK
XML: xpat, libxml, salbotron
Generic: mod_perl, zlib, IMAP, Ming, mcrypt, gettext, freetype2

The latest version of XAMPP may downloaded from its website.

XAMPP Download:
Linux Windows Mac OS X Solaris
You may choose which installer to download the easiest is the .exe. if you have downloaded the tar ball you may use the command to install:
tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.5.3a.tar.gz -C /opt
by default in linux XAMPP is located at:
/opt/lampp
to start XAMPP you may issue the command:
./lampp start
to stop XAMPP you may issue the command
./lampp stop
check your XAMPP installation by typing the following on your web browsers address bar:
http://localhost/
other more specific commands:
Start commands
/opt/lampp/lampp startapache /opt/lampp/lampp startmysql /opt/lampp/lampp startftp
Stop commands
/opt/lampp/lampp stopapache /opt/lampp/lampp stopmysql /opt/lampp/lampp stopftp
Switch PHP versions
/opt/lampp/lampp php4 /opt/lampp/lampp php5