With Pico, you simply create .md files in the content folder and those files become your pages. It offers features that may not be available to other PHP-based CMS, like WordPress Joomla, or Drupal. For one, it doesn’t need a database server, call it database-less. It comes with all features that you need but is smaller than WordPress, like SEO-friendly design, flexible CSS framework, and more. For more about Pico, please check its homepage. This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install Pico on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 LTS / 18.10 with Apache2 and PHP 7.2 support.
Install Apache2 HTTP Server
Pico CMS requires a web server and the Apache2 HTTP server is the most popular open-source web server available today. To install the Apache2 server, run the commands below: After installing Apache2, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots. Now that Apache2 is installed. to test whether the web server is working, open your browser and browse to the URL below. If you see the page above, then Apache2 is successfully installed.
Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules
Pico CMS is a PHP-based CMS and PHP is required. However, PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu’s default repositories. To run PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 and previous, you may need to run the commands below: Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2 Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules. After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open the PHP default configuration file for Apache2. The lines below are a good setting for most PHP-based CMS. Update the configuration file with these and save. Every time you make changes to the PHP configuration file, you should also restart the Apache2 web server. To do so, run the commands below: Now that PHP is installed, to test whether it’s functioning, create a test file called phpinfo.php in the Apache2 default root directory. ( /var/www/html/) Then type the content below and save the file. Next, open your browser and browse to the server’s hostname or IP address followed by phpinfo.php You should see the PHP default test page.
Download Pico’s Latest Release
To get Pico’s latest release you may want to use the GitHub repository. Install Composer, Curl and other dependencies to get started. After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Apache2 root directory and download Pico packages from Github. Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Pico to adjust the directory permissions.
Configure Apache2 Pico Site
Finally, configure the Apache2 configuration file for pico. This file will control how users access Pico content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called pico. conf Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your domain name and directory root location. Save the file and exit. After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
Enable Pico Site and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below, then restart the Apache2 server. Next, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see the Pico page. Pico began as a database-less flat file content management system. Its structure allowed you to have just the amount of functionality you needed in a flat file CMS solution, adding extensions (blade packs) for further functionality, whilst allowing setup on simple servers with no database. You may also like the post below:
