Originally posted by abush
1. Can I install a server on a compaq box with Windows 98 OS. I have XP partitioned on the D:\ drive and I only have 200 mb of space left on D:\
Neither IIS or Apache/PHP/MySQL take up that much space and you're free to install the latter onto your c:\ drive as well.
2. If I can install a server on both of them which one will be better (which one will have less hassle and trouble)
I'd say install it on XP.. Win98 tends to crash too easily to be a development enviorment.
3. I have a dialup connection would that affect anything.
No, since I'm assuming you just want to test things out yourself and not give others a link to the site?
4. What kind of server should I install.
If it's XP Pro then you can install IIS (it's included on the cd) or otherwise I'd suggest Apache.
5. Is all this better than just getting a free host to practice. (I don't think any of the scripts will mess the server up in any way).
It depends.. I wouldn't last 5 minutes if I had to open an FTP session and upload changed files each time I add something.
If it's just installing other people's script it might be too much hassle but to make your own I'd definitly consider testing them on a local server (PHP doesn't get you much but with ASP there's definitly a lot of advantages).
IIS should be straightforward to configure the first time, where Apache can be a real pain unless you happen to enjoy looking through text config files looking for that one setting.
Related.. I don't think you'll find too many free hosts that have PHP, ASP and MySQL all in one. They tend to be linux servers and ASP just doesn't emulate well on anything but IIS (Sun has a decent ASP but it doesn't come free and Perl ASP is just rubbish, it's perl with ASP syntax, it won't run any kind of ASP script) so I think it would be best to either abandon either ASP or PHP, or to get an account on two seperate hosts. One that offers PHP and one Windows account with ASP.