Installing Movable Type on Mac OSX 10.4 - Part 1
So you want to start blogging like yours truly but don't wanna fork out the cash for MacOSX Server? Well compadre, you don't have to shell out a dime because Mac OSX has almost everything you need to get started.
The instructions below are my notes from an actual install onto a MacMini G4 with OSX 10.4.6 installed. Things vary from system to system but overall this should get you up and running. I won't get into how to use Movable Type or how to configure it for all intents and purposes as this is out of the scope of this article. You could probably also take portions of this and use it to install other blogging software such as WordPress. We'll be installing Movable Type 3.2 and MySQL5 and using the terminal a bit so hang tight!
Skill Level: 4 out of 5. You will need to understand how to download and install software on your mac, use the terminal and understand how a web server operates to do this tutorial.
Preliminary Stuff
There's a few things ya gotta do before we even begin. I'll list the steps then explain them a bit.- Install MacOS X Developer Tools (Xcode)
- Turn on Personal Web Sharing
- Download Movable Type
- Download MySQL5
- Download ImageMagick (Optional)
Install MacOS X Developer Tools (Xcode)
What the heck is Xcode? Where do I get it? These aren't silly questions as probably a majority of Mac users will never need to touch Xcode at all. Xcode is basically a collection of tools that Apple distributes to developer types and those who want to us X11 on their Macs. It comes free with each Mac OSX installation and you'll probably find it on your Tiger install CD/DVD. Go ahead and check if its on there and install it. Read more about Xcode here.
If by chance you can't find your install CD/DVD then you're not dead in the water yet. You can still download it from Apple's (it's huge! 800 + megs). Download Xcode here.
Note: (5/23/06) Apple just released Xcode 2.3 today. Use the same download location above!
Turn on Personal Web Sharing
Most people don't know that their Mac running OSX actually has a bunch of cool server software stuff buried deep in it's heart. Thats because most of this cool server stuff is switched off by default since most users won't need to run a web, ftp or ssh server off of their iMac. Luckily Apple made it easy to switch on just in case you do and we do!To turn on your Web Server all you need to do is access your Sharing preferences located in your System Preferences.
- Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Sharing
- Click the check box that says Personal Web Sharing
- Press "Start" if it hasn't automatically done so already
- Make note of your websites address located at the bottom of the the panel.
- Click the link after "View this computer’s website at" and make sure you see a page that has the Apache logo on it. If it shows up then you're in business! Your webserver is turned on!
Download Movable Type
Let's head on over to SixApart's website and download Movable Type. Be sure to choose the package options that are right for you. Get Movable Type here.Download MySQL5
You can use MySQL4 or MySQL5. It's up to you. I decided to be cutting edge and go with 5. You can download MySQL here. We chose the Mac OS X 10.4 (PowerPC) Standard install but choose the version that's right for you. We're using version 5.0.21 at the time of this writing.Download Image Magick (optional)
If you want the ability to resize/scale photos, you'll need Image Magick. The easiest way to get ImageMagick is downloading a premade package made especially for Mac OSX at entropy.ch which also has a ton of other cool OSX made packages. Although this version is older, it's better than compiling it from source... so I opted to just go with the one that was available here.We'll go into installing all of these in our next segment. Stay tuned!
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