Where to Find PHP and More

You can find PHP at http://www.php.net/. PHP is open-source software, which means you won't need your credit card when you download it.

The PHP Web site is an excellent resource for PHP coders. The entire manual can be read online at http://www.php.net/manual/, complete with helpful annotations from other PHP coders. You can also download the manual in several formats.

You can find out more about getting Linux for your computer at 

http://www.linux.org/help/beginner/distributions.html. If you want to run Linux on a Power PC, you can find information about Yellow Dog Linux at http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/. Mac OS X, Apple's latest operating system, is based on Unix BSD and can run PHP with no problems. If you are running OS X, you can find installation information at http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.macosx.php.

If you want to run PHP with Windows, you can find complete installation instructions at http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php.

MySQL, one of the two databases we will use in this book, can be downloaded from http://www.mysql.com. Versions are available for many operating systems, including Unix, Windows, and OS/2.