Fact is that if you want to develop something more than a dynamic menu in php, you’re going to need a debugger. You’re going to need it badly and you don’t even know it (shame on you!).
So let’s start from the beginning. You got bitnami lapp (or lamp) stack because it’s cool and doesn’t need so much configuration (if any at all). So you’re basically ready to start coding.
You realize you need a debugger. You search for it and you find out about xdebug. Cool. Then you approach the Xdebug download page and you see only sources and many windows binaries. Not cool.
Getting XDebug to work on Ubuntu Linux with the Bitnami Stacks
You want the fast, easy way. Here it is.
Fire up a terminal window.
Type in
sudo apt-get install php5-dev php-pear
Don’t worry, it won’t mess your system up. It won’t conflict with the Bitnami stuff. Go ahead and do it.
Then type
sudo pecl install xdebug
It should compile a nice file called something like xdebug.so.
You want to locate that file so type
find / -name 'xdebug.so' 2> /dev/null
Note down the path (probably something like /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/xdebug.so).
Now copy that file from that path to your bitnami php extensions folder.
Something like this
cp /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/xdebug.so /path/to/your/lappstack/php/lib/php/extensions
Now there’s some editing:
sudo nano /path/to/your/lappstack/php/etc/php.ini
and type in the following at the end of the file.
zend_extension=/path/to/your/lappstack/php/lib/php/extensions/xdebug.so xdebug.remote_enable=1 xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp xdebug.remote_mode=req xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1 xdebug.remote_port=9000 [ZendModules] Xdebug
Now you’re done.
Bonus: configure NetBeans to run with the XDebug extension
Just open up the option window (Tools->Options->PHP tab) and type in the correct path to the PHP client. Something like /path/to/your/lappstack/php/bin/php
Just type in the correct path and you're done
Now happy debugging with Bitnami and your lappstack (or lampstack).