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Today I was installing phpmyadmin on Ubuntu 12.04 and after a while a dialogue popped up stating what server I want to use; apache2 or httpd

Are these, two different kinds of server?

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3 Answers 3

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httpd is the same as apache2. It depends on the OS you use. For example in RHEL 6.2 it is called httpd and in Ubuntu it is called apache2.

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TL;DR

They are the same application - just that some Linux distributions refer to it differently within package managers and config files. RedHat-based distros (CentOS, Fedora) refer to it as httpd while Debian-based distros (Ubuntu) refer to it as apache. Gentoo, strangely enough, mostly refers to it as apache - but config files have httpd in the naming conventions.

Background

The application's development is managed by the Apache Foundation. Its name is actually Apache HTTP Server. It is often also called Apache httpd (http daemon) by the Apache Foundation. Colloquially, Unix admins have historically called it Apache and, even with the RedHat-based distributions, everyone already knows what you're referring to when you simply say Apache.

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    Ironically this TL;DR is longer than the accepted response.
    – bfontaine
    Mar 17, 2022 at 9:44
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The directives used in apache2 and httpd config files are slightly different, as well as the directory structure. It's advised to install apache2 on Debian-based distros (Ubuntu) and httpd on RedHat-based distros (RedHat, CentOS, Fedora).

However, if you install httpd and its dependencies on Ubuntu, it works as well.

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