Vagrant

[kongondo]

So I've decided to make the jump to Vagrant...leaving my beloved XAMPP behind. I was initially drawn to Scotchbox but it comes with some stuff that I don't need need - Laravel, all the node stuff as well as the caching stuff - and I couldn't find info whether it is customisable. My plan is to use either PuPHPet or Protobox  (edit: I'll stick with PuPHPet) to customise my box the way I want. Either that or just install things manually (much like I set up my remote server)...I have done my reading and watched YouTube videos so I feel I am ready to take the plunge. I only need one machine (much like what I was doing with XAMMP) so will not be destroying anything soon. The most important things to me (apart from the LAMP stack of course) are automated DB backups and an environment where XDebug can work. I've never been able to have the thing work in XAMPP/Windows! Slightly OT but I might be ditching Sublime Text 3 in favour of Visual Studio Code. Tried it recently and was very impressed...if only Xdebug would work! (before you say it, yes, Tracy is nice for all other needs but what I want as well is something I can use to step through code)....OK, wish me luck...

Edited June 1, 2016 by kongondo

[bernhard]

jep, only thing to be REALLY careful when using vagrant is to have proper DB dumps available on your filesystem. otherwise you are lost, when your box crashes for whatever reason.

the vagrant triggers plugin is a good tool. just write a little backup skript (https://github.com/BernhardBaumrock/vagrant-pw-lamp/blob/master/bin/db_backup) and it will call that on every vagrant halt or destroy.

i wish you good luck looking forward to hearing your learnings

[Bill C]

@Bill C

Depending on your knowledge in managing linux servers Docker might not be a good fit. It does make things easier for experienced people, but if you're just getting into it it's just another complex layer. 

Good point LostKobrakai, thank you for the warning! . I'll leave it on my 'List' for reference, but I think I'll give Vagrant another go soon when I have some time. And thanks to bernhard , gurkendoktor ,  MindFull and  kongondo  for your thoughts and recommendations.

[OrganizedFellow]

I left Vagrant in favor of my LAMP setup, as I develop on Linux (actually openSuse right now).

I could NOT get Vagrant and my Gulp setup to work, particularly Browser-Sync. While everything else worked as expected, I could not figure this out. But that's okay. My LAMP setup closely matched my Digital Ocean box.