Installing Scripts - Don't be Scared!

By Sean Burns
2003-10-14


Installing Scripts - Intro.
One of the biggest problems that I had when I set up my first site was essentially that I had no idea what I was doing. This manifested itself most obviously when it came to installing scripts for my site. I'm not a programmer (far from it) and I thought there would be assumed knowledge when it came to getting things running - knowledge that I assumed I didn't have. Once I decided to give it a go (and stop paying people to do it for me) I realised that it's actually pretty easy.

The majority of scripts that you dowmload on the internet have pretty detailed instructions and if you follow these instructions, you'll be done in a matter of minutes. Occasionally you'll find scripts that do assume that you know what you are doing but even these are relatively simple.

My experience is in installing cgi scripts (usually Perl) on Unix machines which is what I'll discuss here. The first step is downloading and (usually) unzipping the script. To unzip it, all you need is WinZip (http://www.winzip.com/) (or something like it). You will then be presented with the scripts, maybe some other files and the instructions - probably in a ReadMe file.

Tutorial Pages:
» Installing Scripts - Intro.
» Read The Instructions
» CHMOD
» Path To Perl Wraps It Up

Related Tutorials: » Random subroutines in Perl » Log Script Use » Creating Perl Modules for Web Sites » Bit Vector, Using Perl Vec » Build a Perl/CGI Voting System » Perl Range Operator