Starting again, properly with Panther

[Justin French]

Hi all,

I hope this is an okay place to ask -- if not, please point me in the 
right direction.

I'm currently running 10.2.8 as my desktop system, including 
Apache/MySQL/PHP/Perl for web development.  When I first began with 
OSX, I had no real idea what I was doing, so I followed a lot of 
"tutorials" about setting up PHP, MySQL, etc, which I believe resulted 
in a really messy install, and a lot of crud.

I'd have no idea how to recompile or upgrade PHP, add libraries and 
modules to it, etc etc, and I fear that (for example) upgrading to 
Panther might have a bad effect on what I've already installed.

My aim is to make it as easy as possible for me to add, upgrade, 
recompile etc new software (like PHP) "the right way", so that I'm 
never in this position of "not knowing what to do" ever again.



What I'd like to know is how I can clean up as much crud as possible, 
and start doing things the right way.

Off the top of my head, this is what I think I need to backup:
- everything in my home directory (includes my htdocs) (easy)
- httpd.conf (easy)
- php.ini (easy)
- mysql conf and databases (no idea how to do this properly)

I'll probably also do a general back-up of my entire HDD using Carbon 
Copy Cloner <http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html> to my second 
internal drive too.


At this point, I'm not sure if I should attempt to delete anything 
Apache/PHP/Perl/MySQL from my system or not... and if so, what the best 
way would be.

I'm also unsure if now would be the right time to upgrade to Panther, 
or if it should be later.


Then I think I should look at installing something like Fink 
<http://fink.sourceforge.net/>, which appears to be what I need for 
convenience, clarity, convention and simplicity.  My understanding is 
that it will "help" me install, compile, recompile, etc new software 
the "right way"... however, it looks to me like the ports are a fair 
way behind the current stables... eg PHP looks to be at 4.0.6-4 in 
Fink, but they're up around 4.3.4 in "real life".

I'd then need to copy across httpd.conf (easy), php.ini (easy) and 
mysql database stuff (no idea) so that I don't loose any data, or any 
of my old server's behaviour.


If anyone can provide some advice on the best way for me to clean up 
and move forward, I'd really appreciate it.  To recap, my goals are (in 
no particular order):

- make sure i don't loose any mysql or document data
- clean out old installs of Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl
- upgrade to Panther
- perform a clean install (in the "right place") of Apache, MYSSQL, 
PHP, Perl, etc), with the option to recompile, add modules and 
libraries, etc, and the knowledge to do it all properly.
- re-use conf and ini files to keep behaviour as close to the original 
as possible


Thanks in advance,

---
Justin French
http://indent.com.au