The article WordPress in a nutshell gives you a basic understanding of WordPress and an example installation of it on XAMPP, Debian.

Introduction

WordPress in a CMS (Content Management System), which is running on a server. The server can be local or remote. A local server can be LAMP (Linux), WAMP (Win), MAMP (Mac) or XAMPP (cross platform). A remote server is usually your Web server (Host) – Apache works best for WordPress.

WordPress needs to work correctly PHP and MySQL.

When you download WordPress you get a bunch of files. Mostly PHP files but also JavaScript files, CSS ones and others.

Raw installation

– Download the WordPress files
– Get or set up a server
– Put the WP files on the server
– Create a database for WP
– Configure WP in order to communicate with the database
– Run the installation procedure of WP
– Use WP, create your blog

Security

Hosting is more secure when PHP applications, like WordPress, are run using your account’s username instead of the server’s default shared username. The most common way nowadays for hosting companies to do this is using suPHP. Just ask your potential host if they run suPHP or something similar.

Host installation

Most shared hosts haves their own install script. After running the script you need only the ID and password in order to log in the WP admin area. Now you can start build your blog.

Step by step installation on Debian Wheezy and XAMPP

Download the WordPress files : http://wordpress.org/download/

Set up a server : install XAMPP

Put the WP files on the server

/opt/lampp/htdocs/wordpress

copy the wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php

Create a database for WP

login in XAMPP

login in phpMyAdmin as root

Create a database user for wordpress :
– go Privileges – Add a new user
– name example : wp_db_user
– create a password : 1234 (bad example)
– Database for user : none
– Global privileges : all except Administration
– click : go

Logout as root

Login as wp_db_user

Create new database :
– name example : wp_db
– click create

Configure WP in order to communicate with the database

edit the /opt/lampp/htdocs/wordpress/wp-config.php
type in :
– database name (wp_db)
– database user name (wp_db_user) never use root !
– database user password (1234)
– localhost

Run the installation procedure of WP

http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php

– Title : My nice blog (your site title)
– ID : admin (is default, change it)
– PW : passw123 (create a stronger password)
– You e-mail : xxx@ggg.zzz

– click on “install”
– if installation is ok
– click on “connect”
– log in now