Tools of the Trade

Our transition to open source is going very well. We expect to launch our first site on the new platform next week and then continue the work on the others. Of course, we chose our first site due to its size and simplicity, so the real challenges are still in front of us.

Throughout the process, we've settled on a number of different tools to solve our specific needs. I thought others my enjoy a list of what we've come up with so far. Feel free to share your experiences with any of these or make the case for your personal favorite.

Open Source Tools of Choice

Operating System: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4

Database: PostgreSQL 8

Language: PHP 5

Web Server: Apache 2.0

Hardware: Dell (PowerEdge SC1425)

Hosting: CoLo4Dallas

Weblogs: Serendipity

Chats: PHPOpenChat

Forums: phpBB

Web Stats: AWStats

E-Commerce: Zen Cart (custom-patched for PostgreSQL)

PHP Editor: Quanta Gold

Calendar Widget: The DHTML/JavaScript Calendar

Editor Widget: FCKeditor

Photo Album Widget: SimpleViewer

Comments

[Evan Erwin]

Any particular reason you're running Postgre and not MySQL?

[Brian Glass]

Interesting list. Out of that list we're using Red Hat, PHP, Apache, and AWStats. Mambo and Mambo components provide the rest of that functionality for us.

I'm considering adding some sort of chat rooms. I see you are using a chat package. How are you planning to use that? I've considered installing a chat component, but it seems like there might need to be some sort of structure around it - like say moderated, scheduled chats. I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

[Brian Glass]

Oh, and we're using MySQL in place of PostgreSQL.

[Mike S]

It would be interesting to see what tech stack you're moving from.

[Brian Bailey]

The switch was from the Microsoft .NET world - Visual Studio 2003, C#, ASP.NET, IIS 5, SQL Server 2000, Web Trends - all internally hosted.

I'll have a more detailed MySQL/PostgreSQL comparison soon.

[Tom]

Can I ask what the specs are on the Dell PowerEdge Server? I'm just curious as to what you thought was acceptable as far as processor and RAID setup.

[phil crissman]

I'd love to give a list of the Open Source software we use here, but this workplace is basically a Microsoft shop. That's not all bad, of course, but I'd love to have a few Linux boxes running, mostly because it's honestly more fun to use.

We have MySQL and PHP in some use, though. We're also using both Mambo and Moodle for some content management (the latter is written specifically for web-based course management for schools/colleges, works very well!).

We also do some in-house ColdFusion development. ColdFusion is one of those technologies that you would think is on the verge of death, but when you start looking around the internet and the user groups, it actually has quite a large userbase. Not a bad platform, if you're willing to pay for it.

[Josh Clark]

Care to share what you use for online payment processing ( i.e Tithing online ) ?

[Brian]

We use Fellowship One from Fellowship Technologies (fellowshiptech.com). They handle everything from event registration to online giving.