First off I don't really like to go with extra apps on my Mac. So with Leopard I'd use (mark's) PHP (as 10.5.x didn't have GD support at least) and official MySQL distribution. With Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) Apple did a great job rolling out quite a nice http server but to the date it's way too advanced for my normal dev life. None of the web apps I do develop with (Druapl, ExpressionEngine, Joomla, WP ... ) are ready for PHP 5.3 yet. So the only choice was downgrade.
I've tried a few ways as MacProts, compiling my own PHP (and libs) but that was not even 90% successful or buggy. So I looked to MAMP again. Here are a few tips to get MAMP running nicely at OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard):
- Install MAMP Dashboard widget. Again, just hate any extra apps clogging the Dock.
- You can easily enable terminal to work with MAMP's MySQL. It will help to import / export large db dumps and etc.
sudo mkdir /var/mysql
sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock
sudo chown _mysql /var/mysql/mysql.sock
sudo chmod 777 /var/mysql/mysql.sock - I'm using VHX (VirtualHostX) to manage hosts for my local dev sites. It's a nice tool to streamline local dev environment. More over your virtual hosts settings will be kept in tact even if you will switch to OSX's own Apache. Nice.
- If your VHX doesn't pick up with MAMP you can add the VHX config row manually to
/Applications/MAMP/conf/apache/httpd.confright at the end of the file.NameVirtualHost *:80
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf - Just in sake of more comfort you can add MAMP's mysql to bash profile (don't forget to reopen terminal window to let it work):
echo 'export PATH=/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile - Not sure what was really the reason, but for me MAMP would ruin the configuration each time MAMP app would start. Easy solution to this problem is just to lock file Apache conf file
/Applications/MAMP/conf/apache/httpd.confin Finder (file -> get info or cmd+I). - Keep your sites in your User/Sites directory and change MAMP Apache document root. It might help when switching from/to MAMP/OSX servers.
And just to remind there is an amazing and free Sequel Pro to work with your local MySQL and remote databases.
Thanks for sharing this! Snow Leopard is a good OS. But it just goes to show that not all upgrades yield better results. :)
It's a nice post on the subject and I can see why you'd prefer your way of solving this issue. I do though disagree with you on the bad things that come with basic MAMP. It's easy to install and it doesn't in my opinion take so much space in the dock. Certainly if your dock is too filled with stuff you don't want this extra icon.
Anyway point taken. :)