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If you are installing from scratch I suggest using some kind of virtualization technology.
Your Own
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On your own desktop, I personally like VMWare Workstation (which I have a soft place in my heart for) and on the Mac I prefer Parallels. There is also some free alternatives,
- VMware Player - No snapshots.
- Sun/Oracle VirtualBox - Free for personal use.
Home System
If you plan on using your own home server I am outlining the steps.
Hosting Company
When using a hosting company we currently find KVM based solutions the most cost effective for solutions that require 1GB of RAM. See the Bonsai Framework discussion on Hosting for further details.
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