noynaert/Laravel on Linux.md

## Laravel on Linux.md

      
    Raw
  

              Laravel on Linux.md
            
          
    Installing Laravel on Linux

Note:  This document is not finished.
Written for Laravel 2.3 and PHP 7

This is written for Ubuntu, LinuxMint, and oter debian derivatives that use apt or apt-get.  I have tested it on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.  Also, this installation may not be the minimum.  In particular, some of the php files May not be absolutely necessary, especially if you are not running nginx and valet.
I have this guide on Fedora using "dnf" instead of apt should work in most places.  A few of the PHP bundles are a bit differentently, but It still worked.  The Fedora packages seem to be more inclusive, so all of the important PHP components seemed to be loaded.
Homestead

Homestead is a useful tool.  but it can be overwhelming at first if you are trying to learn both Laravel and Homestead.

It is much easier and quicker to whip up little learning projects without Homestead.  In my experience Homestead makes
things easier for people using Windows.
I do recommend Homestead if you are working on dedicated projects.
** Valet
I like Valet.  However, it is one more thing that needs to be installed (two, if you count nginx).  My advice to students is
to try to install valet.  If that doesn't work at first, then just use the built-in php server.  Worry about fixing the
problem once you are comfortable with the environment.
##The general procedure is

Install PHP extensions
Fix PHP configurations
Install Composer
Install Laravel
Test Laravel and Artisan
Optionally:

Install NGINX server
Install Valet


Steps

Both of the following are kind of old.  But they are still useful references:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-laravel-with-an-nginx-web-server-on-ubuntu-14-04
http://tecadmin.net/install-laravel-framework-on-ubuntu/

In the following instructions I install packages one at a time.  Some probably find this inefficient.  However, I assume people may have problems across time and distributions.  In these types of situations I prefer to install one at a time so it is easier to identify exactly which packages fail.
Step 1 install php

Open a command window.  Type the following commands.  This command also installs the GIT protocol.  Git isn't technically necessary, but you should still install it so it is available.
These installs should be straightforward.  They should work regardless of what system you are using.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install php 
sudo apt install git
sudo apt install curl

This step could have been done as part of the above.  However, these installs may be more problematic over time.   If these commands don't work for you, it may be necessary to research your specific system.
sudo apt install php-common
sudo apt install php-curl
sudo apt install php-json
sudo apt install php-readline
sudo apt install php-fpm 
sudo apt install php-cli 
sudo apt install php-xml
sudo apt install php-mcrypt 
sudo apt install php-zip
sudo apt install php-mbstring
sudo apt install php-gd

If you want to do it all in one shot, copy and paste the following
sudo apt install php-common php-curl php-json php-readline php-fpm php-cli php-xml php-mcrypt php-zip php-mbstring php-gd

You can run the following command to clean up any unneeded packages.
sudo apt autoremove

Step 2 Change PHP configuration

Laravel needs mcrypt enabled.
sudo phpenmod mcrypt

You may need to enable more, depending largely if you install nginx.
Step 3 Install Composer

Composer may be installed globally or just for this user.  I assume you are going to be running it on your own development machine.  It will avoid some hastles if we just install it locally.
First, change back to your home directory.
cd ~

Now fetch the composer installer and run it by pyping it through php.
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

After this runs you should have a program in your home directory.  It should be named "composer.phar."  It is basically the working part of the composer program.   you should be able to execute it and get a help screen by typing the following:
./composer.phar

To make composer more widely available, make it available outside your home directory.
 mv composer.phar composer
 chmod a+x composer
 sudo mv composer /usr/local/bin/composer

Now you should just be able to type "composer" and get the same help screen you saw when you typed ./composer.phar
This is a semi-tricky step.  You will need to edit a text file called .bashrc  (The leading dash is important).  You may use whatever text editor you wish.  The following command uses the "nano" editor.  We will be adding the folder ~/.composer/vendor/bin to the search path.
nano ~/.bashrc

Go down to the bottom of the file.  There might or migh not we a command that starts export PATH.  If you find one, add the following statement after the other PATH statements  Note that there is a period in front of composer.
export PATH=~/.composer/vendor/bin:$PATH

Save the file.   Close your terminal window.  You can just type "exit" in most cases.    Then open it again.
The .bashrc file executes every time you open a terminal window.  By closing it and opening the window we executed .bashrc and added the new directory to the path.  (If you want to cheat, just type "bash" instead of opening and closing.  Now you will need to exit twice to close the terminal.  You are also using more system resources.)
You can check the path with the following command:
echo $PATH

You should see that the path now ends with something like /home/yourID/.composer/vendor/bin
Step 4 Install Laravel

Type the command.  Be sure to include the ~ before 1.1
  composer require "laravel/installer=~1.1"

Step 5 Test Laravel and Artisan

Be patient.  Sometimes it takes a moment for the program to produce any output.  When it finishes running you should just be able to type "laravel" and see a help menu.
laravel

🔶 Potential Problem 🔶

Some people have had problems with getting a "command not found" message on laravel.  This fix works, I suspect composer is installing a little differently than I think.  There may be a better organic fix, but the following does seem to work.
First, see if you have  .composer  or vendor directory by typing
ls .composer
ls vendor

If you are missing a .composer directory, but you have a vendor directory, then do the following two commands.
mkdir .composer
mv vendor .composer

The "laravel" command should now work.
Back to laravel:

Make a directory to host your laravel project.  Some people recommend a folder called ~/sites.  This is being written for
the ACT311 course.  Therefore I will be using act311 as sthe directory.  You may use any legal file name you want.  I will also use "test" as the name of our test project.
 mkdir ~/act311
 cd ~/act311
 laravel new first
 cd first
 ls

You should see a list of directories and files.  On of the files should be called "artisan."  There may be some error messages about cache.  Those don't seem to be serious.  I will try to investigate them more.
Now let's check the sinstallation.  PHP itself has a simple server built into it.  The server can be used to check your laravel application.
One of the things that the "laravel new" command did was create a file called artisan.  The following command will launch the php server on port 8080.
php artisan serve --port=8080 &
<<<< hit the enter key an extra time >>>>
firefox http://localhost:8080 &
<<<< hit the enter key an extra time >>>>

If everything went well magic should happen.  You should have firefox running.  It should show a white page with Laravel in the middle in big letters.
Let's backtrack and see what these commands did.  First, notice that both the commands ended with &.   The ampersand is used by the Bash command line to launch a program and then come back to the command prompt.  The program will continue running in the background until you close the command prompt.  It is possible to "kill" the server, but you will need to investigate the unix kill command on your own if you want to do that.  For now just remember that closing the command window will kill both the server and firefox.
Technically, you do not need the --port=8080.   If you don't put that in the web page will open on port 8000 instead of 8080.  If 8000 works for you, that is just fine, and it saves some typing.  However, sometimes there is another server already running on 8000.  If you are working on multiple projects at a time you can use other port numbers, with one port for each application.  For example, if you had three projects running at the same time you could have them on 8000, 8040, and 8080.
Step 6 Install nginx and valet

This step is optional.  In theory you should be able to view your web page with the built-in php server.
Some of these packages may already be installed.
sudo apt install libnss3-tools
sudo apt install jq
sudo apt install xsel
sudo apt install nginx
Use composer to install the ubuntu fork of valet.  I have also used it on Fedora and LinuxMint.
composer require cpriego/valet-ubuntu
Move into the test folder we created earlier.  In my case this is
cd ~/act311/first

Type "ls" and make sure you are in the test database.  You should see folders including app and public.
Now we will wrap up and get vlalet linked to our project.  These commands may take a while to run.  I got some error messages, but things still worked for me.
valet install
valet park
valet link

Now you should be able to open your browser.  Go to http://first.dev/  Your Laravel web page should show up.   With valet there is no need to run the php server from artisan.