Upgrade, reinstall, and a php hello world

Well, I tinkered with my linux computer and figured I might as well
reinstall with a newer version of Mandrake while I was at it. And so passed
a week... I guess I shouldn't have violated the first rule of upgrading -
upgrade ONE! part at a time. It took a while to figure out whether it was
an IDE cable problem, the CD-Burner I was trying to put in, or a refurb Zip
250 ATAPI drive I was able to pick up cheap. Seems it was the burner, and
old HP 4x4x32x which I had pulled out of my Windows box a few months ago
when I had the chance to replace it with a TDK VeloCD (12x10x32x which I
was able to spot at roughly $55 after rebate). So instead of a burner my
linux box now has a DVD drive; I must recommend DVD drives over (non RW) cd
drives, it is much quieter than the cd-rom drive it has replaced.

And just prior to this email I got Apache to serve a php file off of Washu
my linux box. Sure it was nothing more than "phpinfo();", but that's more
than I've done off my own computer previously. Anyone have a favorite
Apache tutorial for the newbie admin? I've had to read the file out of a
"public_html" directory within my home directory, it seems Mandrake 8.2
installs Apache with the document root writable only by the Apache user. I
figured I wouldn't touch the config file or permissions right away since I
don't have to, still seems odd that even the Apache group wouldn't have
write permission for the document root (I can see not letting the whole
world have write permission that's merely a sane precaution).

I suppose this means it's time to actually subscribe to the php users group
mailing list as well. Which seems like a good excuse to switch from reading
the plug list off Eudora and choose a linux mail reader. Any Evolution
users in plug? The idea of virtual folders seems very appealing to me, I've
got a whole tangle of folders in Eudora (and seem to be pushing it rather
hard, I'm seeing an index rebuild a week. Then again my mail files are over
750 megabytes -- what, so I'm two years behind on a couple of mailing
lists. :-)

Just a little tinkering to see if I can get rid of Washu's fan noise and
I'll have a pretty nice home server (Amazing what a modest Cel433 can do. I
doubt Windows would feel as spry on it. Heck, Windows on this PIII 650 can
often feel slower than that Celeron 433).

Steven,