GNU social is a free and decentralized social network platform that allows users to create and join communities, share their thoughts and ideas, and connect with like-minded people. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the installation process of GNU social on Windows 11.
Before we begin the installation, make sure you have the following prerequisites:
The first step is to download GNU social from the official website at https://gnu.io/social/. Choose the latest version, and download the ZIP file to your computer.
After downloading the ZIP file, extract it to the XAMPP htdocs folder (typically located at C:\xampp\htdocs). You can do this by right-clicking on the ZIP file and selecting "Extract Here" from the context menu.
The extracted folder will have a name like "social-2.0.1". Rename this folder to "social" for simplicity.
Open your web browser and go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/. This will take you to the PHPMyAdmin page. Click on "New" to create a new database.
In the "Create database" field, give your database a name (e.g. "social_db") and click "Create".
Now, go to the "Import" tab in PHPMyAdmin, select the SQL file located in the "social/extras/" directory, and click "Go".
This will import the necessary database tables and data for GNU social. You should see a success message if everything went well.
Open the "config.php" file, located in the "social" folder, in a text editor. Modify the following settings:
$config['site']['name'] - the name of your GNU social site$config['db']['database'] - the name of the database you created in Step 4$config['db']['user'] - your MySQL username (usually "root" for XAMPP)$config['db']['pass'] - your MySQL password (usually blank for XAMPP)$config['db']['type'] - set this to "mysqli"$config['db']['host'] - set this to "localhost"Save the "config.php" file.
Open your web browser and go to http://localhost/social/. This will take you to the GNU social installation page. Follow the on-screen instructions to initialize your site. You will need to create an administrative account during this process.
After the installation process is complete, log in to your new GNU social site and start exploring its features. You can also customize the site by selecting themes and plugins from the "Admin" menu.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed GNU social on your Windows 11 computer.
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