Install LAMP with one line

One liner

sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

Add CURL and enable mod-rewrite

sudo apt-get install php5-curl
sudo a2enmod rewrite

To compile LAMP with mysqli and mysql

Assuming you have a fresh clean minimal install of ubuntu start by install gcc and wget

sudo apt-get gcc
sudo apt-get wget

Download apache and php and use filezilla or a similar SFTP client to upload them to the server (I was unable to find a direct link that didnt pass through a mirror), once uploaded move to the directory on the cmd line.

unpack apache

gzip -d httpd-2_x_NN.tar.gz
tar -xf httpd-2_x_NN.tar

unpack PHP

gzip -d php-NN.tar.gz
tar -xf php-NN.tar

Compile and install Apache

cd httpd-2_x_NN
./configure --enable-so
make
sudo make install

Compile PHP

cd ../php-NN
./configure --with-aspxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs --with-mysql=/usr/bin/mysql_config  --with-mysqli=mysqlnd --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd

This will fail with an error “error locating libxml2” fix this with:

sudo apt-get install libxml2

Next the error below will appear

xml2 config not found Please check your libxml2 installation

Point your browser or ftp client at ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/ and take note of the latest version for libxml2-2.6.28 and then grab it and install it from the server

sudo wget ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/libxml2-2.X.XX.tar.gz
sudo tar -zxvf libxml2-2.X.XX.tar.gz
cd libxml2-2.X.XX/
./configure
make
sudo make install

Try to compile PHP again:

./configure --with-aspxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs --with-mysql=/usr/bin/mysql_config  --with-mysqli=mysqlnd --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd

next problem is Mysql

configure: error: Cannot find MySQL header files under /usr/bin/mysql_config

To fix this, Install mysql:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

But now even though Mysql is found there are still no headers so first install php module for mysql:

sudo apt-get install php5-mysql

and add the header library

sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev

Now PHP should compile and install fine:

./configure --with-aspxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs --with-mysql=/usr/bin/mysql_config  --with-mysqli=mysqlnd --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd
make
make install

Set up an ini file for PHP:

sudo cp php.ini-development /usr/local/lib/php.ini

tell apache to load the module:

LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so

You need to re/start apache

/usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start

personally I like to restart the entire server with changes this big

shutdown now -r

Thats it!