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Humble Bundle allows torrenting of your purchase from them to you.
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Anyway there's plenty of premade VMs for experimenting. One can even give old OS a try where original hardware is unavailable (Amiga, BeOS, OS/2, Nextstep, etc). Never mind the wealth of older software attached to that.
If you are building this e-commerce platform for a learning experience only, please disregard the rest of this comment. Should you plan to do it for a production site, please read on.
From a security point of view, I would advise against building a webshop/e-commerce site from scratch.
Especially this type of web application contains sensitive data, so the highest focus must be on security and data protection. If you are not familiar with security mechanisms, don't try to re-invent the wheel.
There are several tested and trusted solutions for e-commerce sites that are free, easy to install, and easy to modify to one's own needs. Mostly, they build on a combination of PHP and MySQL (or PostgreSQL), so learning PHP will very likely be necessary. (It's an easy to learn language anyway, so you won't face big problems).
Some examples for ready-made e-shop packages are (links to the Bitnami stacks which deliver pre-configured solutions):
And some more: Bitnami e-commerce stacks
If you are really looking for hassle free development then select a whole deployable 'stack' among these options https://bitnami.com/stacks/forum Your best bet is Discourse, its RoR, modern and has slick interface.
I talked about this in the past, and what you're looking for makes sense. Having a catalogue of curated "stacks" is basically the equivalent of a Docker-based app store. One could even "augment" common images with additional features that make it easier or more flexible to deploy in a "self service" fashion.
In fact, this idea makes so much sense that a company called Bitnami provides just that. They got bought by VMware though, so I don't think they want community contributions or to enable a marketplace around it.
Then again, I look back at the golden times of traditional web hosting services and their control panels with "automated" install scripts for common applications, and think that perhaps there isn't that much innovation to be done in this space.
Use a dedicated, ready, trusted e-commerce platform, like Magento, OpenCart, etc. See: https://bitnami.com/stacks/e-commerce as examples for available platforms.
Writing your own e-commerce platform is a bad idea since money and security are involved.
The existing e-commerce platforms are security certified, tested, receive regular upgrades and are maintained by teams.
I've used a TurnKey linux version of Moodle before. Just download the OVA, deploy it to your favorite virtual host and play with it. I haven't had too much experience with Canvas. I've used TurnKey for deployable apps, Bitnami is another resource that offers full stacks. Others amy be able to pipe in with additional resources.
After trying pretty much all the alternatives, I use ServerPress now, with Duplicator. Bitnami was second best, but should you fuck up something on it's Ubuntu stack, you're SOL. (Don't ask how I know this...)
Don't do it. My suggestion is for you to choose from the range of solutions here. You can install them on your own workstation hassle-free. You can take a bit of time to custom them but it definitely won't be anywhere near as complicated as picking up a language to get the job done. Wordpress/Joomla/Drupal should suffice. Heck, if you're really into it, Liferay too.
Install a spartan OS.
Like kDE Neon or a minimal flavour or Ubuntu server and install tasksel. then install a core desktop package. xfce or any of the main flavours.
Install only the bare essential systemwide on your OS.
Containerise everything else.
There are free, ready to go, feature rich and supported containers available everywhere
as an example
With your constraints, you're best off looking for some existing tool.
Maybe, browse through the Bitnami stacks to see if you find something suitable.
Bitnami stacks are pre configured virtual machines that run in VMWare Workstation (Player is free) and require little to no setup.
I would look into the direction of CRM tools.
Probably easiest if you look into either:
- Bug tracking, like Redmine
- CRM systems (type CRM in the search field of the linked website)
Website: https://bitnami.com/stacks
The above link points to preconfigured virtual machines/appliances that you can use with a virtual machine host, like VMWare Workstation Player (free), VMWare Workstation (Commercial), VMWare ESXi (commercial), Oracle VirtualBox (free).
Probably easiest if you look into either:
- Bug tracking, like Redmine
- CRM systems (type CRM in the search field of the linked website)
Website: https://bitnami.com/stacks
The above link points to preconfigured virtual machines/appliances that you can use with a virtual machine host, like VMWare Workstation Player (free), VMWare Workstation (Commercial), VMWare ESXi (commercial), Oracle VirtualBox (free).
Look into open source systems. There are plenty such CRM/ERP etc applications around.
As a starting point, go through the Bitnami stacks - maybe something like <em>Dolibarr</em> there (official website)
I think there's a strong use case for COTS apps delivered and run as containers using k8s operators to manage them. Less overhead on the management of the app and you can easily plug them into a your platform for container logging, alerting, tracing, traffic routing and policies.
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Just look at Bitnami and the apps they offer pre-packaged and ready to go in containers. https://bitnami.com/stacks
Looks cool, but still requires an internet connection. The reason I like self hosted options is because I want to work completely offline with it. If I had a internet connection, I wouldn't be worried about hosting my own wikipedia.
It seems better to use something like the Bitnami packages instead of sandstorm.io, they have offline installers for 130+ applications and are modular. Plus, you can use the MediaWiki package and run wikipedia without converting to another format. That would allow you to use the dumps straight from wikipedia.
> you could probably even set up your own server (though that would be a bit more complicated, I suppose).
It isn't all that complicated. You could even use a Raspberry Pi for that - or a pre-configured package from Bitnami. Several NAS systems also have git packages so that they can act as remote repository.
Sidebar -> Frequently Asked Questions
In general, you will need to learn:
- HTML for the page content
- CSS for the page styling
- A database system (MySQL, PostgreSQL, HeidiDB) for the database that stores the listing information and user login data
- A backend language (PHP, Python, JavaScript, Java, etc.) for the interaction between the database and the front end pages
- A lot of website security because you need to protect:
- the users' login data
- your site from malicious attacks
- your database from external database manipulations
- etc.
Most likely, you will be better off using an existing system - take a look at <strong>Bitnami</strong> to see if there is an existing system that gets close to your needs. I recommend Bitnami for evaluating because they offer pre-configured appliances - later, when going into production you will need to set-up the respective program on your own server (where Bitnami appliances cannot help you any more), but for testing it is quicker.
Good luck!
Set up a free VMware hypervisor
Download appliances from here https://bitnami.com/stacks/bug-tracking or here https://www.turnkeylinux.org/
Try them out. See what works for you.
Lansweeper V6, currently in beta, has quite a nice issue tracker. Due out sometime this year.
Probably you should first look at pre-configured e-commerce sites.
Examples are on Bitnami
Applications category e-commerce
Magento and OpenCart are popular examples.
The technical requirements:
- You will need a webhost with rather large storage space.
- You will need a domain
- You will need a backend language, like PHP, Python, Java, C#, node.js, etc.
- You will need a database like MySQL, PostgreSQL
- You will need some frontend languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript
The concerns:
- Your first and foremost concern (more important than the actual functionality of the site) must be security.
- A safe way for the users to create accounts and login to their accounts
- A safe way of storing user data (login, passwords, etc.)
- A way to protect against Cross Site Scripting
- A way to protect the database against SQL injections
The considerations - design:
- You need to make a landing page from where the users can create accounts and log in, and that displays some images or whatever you want on your starting page
- You need to make an account page system that allows users to upload their pictures
- You need to create some pages that allow users to view the pictures
- You will probably need a categorization, album, and search system
- You will also need to create some administrator pages that allow you to change settings, manage user accounts, manipulate the database, etc.
All in all, this is not a small task.
If you just need a gallery, look at some pre-made solutions as they fulfill all or most of the above criteria and can be used with minimal customization.
Bitnami has pre-configured application stacks that are very easy to use so that you can get started in no time. Bitnami Photo Sharing applications
Well they take like five minutes to setup and are great Linux NAS solutions:
- NAS4Free
- OpenFiler
i run both at home and NAS4free is better.
If you want to setup a Joomla or other LAMP server, goto Bitnami and download one the appliances, there are more than 100 to choose from:
Concrete5. C5 has a wonderful inline editor, is fast, stable, and can make some very nice sites. If you can use MS-Word, you can make a site with C5. http://www.concrete5.org/
I currently have three C5 sites. Have been using it for about two years. You can get a free dev instance on Bitnami for a year (Bitrock hosting). I also have two sites on Inmotion. Bitrock gives you root on your own Ubuntu LTS server, with a slick interface. Inmotion is cheaper, but Bitrock is better.
By the way, whatever CMS you choose, use Bitnami for the package. Bitnami makes like soooo easy. https://bitnami.com/stacks
You will need both sets of skills. I would recommend getting familiar with some type of content management system. This will allow you to practice programming and HTML/CSS/JS (theming layer) at the same time. The other advantage is that you can learn from viewing others' source code. Pre-built stacks are available here: https://bitnami.com/stacks