A bit OT perhaps: Counsel on a newbie to php and MySQL (on Ubuntu!)

[Peter N. Spotts]

Hi folks,

I've decided to learn php and MYSQL for web work, armed with "PHP and
MYSQL for Dummies." But I find that even at that book's very basic
level, the author assumes that once the two are installed, the reader
will know how to activate them and what the directory structures are
supposed to look like.

I've installed PHP, Apache, and MySQL on my laptop, which I figured I'd
use for my training wheels, as per instructions here: 

http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-apache2-with-php5-and-mysql-support-on-ubuntu-11.04-lamp

When I try to start Apache as sudo, I get the following error message: 

apache2: Syntax error on line 227 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: Could
not open configuration file /etc/apache2/conf.d/drupal6.conf: No such
file or directory

And yet, when I call up a terminal and cd my way to /etc/apache2/conf.d,
drupal6.conf indeed is present and accounted for.

Is this a permissions issue? Or a not-so-obvious (to a newbie) place
where I mucked up the installation? Any guidance on how to get this up
and running would be appreciated. 

With best regards,

Pete

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Peter N. Spotts | Science reporter
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