How to Set up PoPOS for Drupal Development: A Beginner's Guide

If you are a developer looking for a lightweight, portable, and user-friendly operating system for your Drupal development projects, PoPOS may be the perfect solution for you. PoPOS, or Portable Pop!_OS, is a lightweight and customizable Linux distribution based on Pop!_OS, designed to be run from a USB stick or an external hard drive. In this article, we will guide you through the process of setting up PoPOS for Drupal development, including installing XAMPP and creating a softlink to a website folder.

Step 1: Download and Install PoPOS

The first step is to download the latest version of PoPOS from the official website (https://pop-iso.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/20.10/amd64/). Once you have downloaded the ISO file, you can create a bootable USB stick using tools like Rufus or Etcher. To create a bootable USB stick with Rufus, follow these steps:

  1. Insert the USB stick into your computer.
  2. Open Rufus and select the USB stick from the Device dropdown menu.
  3. Click on the Select button and choose the PoPOS ISO file you downloaded earlier.
  4. Leave all other settings at their default values and click on the Start button.
  5. Rufus will now create the bootable USB stick for you.

Step 2: Boot into PoPOS

Once you have created the bootable USB stick, you can boot into PoPOS by inserting the USB stick into your computer and restarting it. You may need to change the boot order in your computer's BIOS to boot from the USB stick. Once you have booted into PoPOS, you will see the desktop environment.

Step 3: Install XAMPP

XAMPP is a popular web server solution that includes Apache, MySQL, and PHP. To install XAMPP on PoPOS, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Terminal application from the Applications menu.
  2. Run the following command to download the latest version of XAMPP:
wget https://www.apachefriends.org/xampp-files/8.0.12/xampp-linux-x64-8.0.12-0-installer.run

   3. Make the XAMPP installer executable by running the following command:

chmod +x xampp-linux-x64-8.0.12-0-installer.run

    4. Run the XAMPP installer by running the following command:

sudo ./xampp-linux-x64-8.0.12-0-installer.run

    5. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation of XAMPP.

Step 4: Create a Softlink to a Website Folder

To create a softlink to a website folder, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Terminal application from the Applications menu.
  2. Navigate to the htdocs folder of XAMPP by running the following command:
cd /opt/lampp/htdocs

  3. Create a new folder for your Drupal website by running the following command:

sudo mkdir mydrupalwebsite

  4. Navigate to the folder where your Drupal website files are located. For example, if your Drupal website files are located in the folder /home/user/mydrupalwebsite, you can navigate to this folder by running the following command:

cd /home/user/mydrupalwebsite

  5. Create a softlink to the website folder in the htdocs folder of XAMPP by running the following command:

sudo ln -s /home/user/mydrupalwebsite /

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