There is a big disclaimer that should be made to all those about to venture on ImageMagick programming using PHP: the great, vast majority of WAMP (Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP) servers do not support ImageMagick commands at all, since it is a "different package," and there appears to be no way to install ImageMagick through standard Add/Remove Applications within Linux (as far as standard Debian linux releases go). It's very easy to get Apache/PHP running in either Windows or Linux with pretty much any standard OS/distro supported so that you can run all of your own code on your own computer. But that's definitely not the case when you want Imagick to cooperate with your Apache server and your PHP code!
It took me almost an entire week just to get Apache/PHP/ImageMagick working all together nice and happily so that I could run my own PHP code on my own machine (natively, too). So, I decided to simply write down the steps, to help anyone else out who could need help.
Guide to Building an Apache/PHP/Imagick Server with Linux/CentOS 6.4:::
1. Install CentOS 6.4. (Theoretically, other versions of CentOS should work as well, but I simply chose the most recent one.) Also, you can very easily emulate CentOS within Windows (for instance, the unfree choice of VMWare).
2. Install PHP, PHP-Common, PHP-extensions, etc., from standard Application Package Manager ("Add/Remove Programs", usually in system tools somewhere). (You don't have to worry about Apache, because that comes with CentOS 6.4 anyway.)
3. Open up a terminal and enter admin mode with the command "su". You'll need a password for this.
4. Enter this command: yum install ImageMagick ImageMagick-devel
5. Enter this command: pecl install imagick
6. Modify php.ini and include the line "extension=imagick.so". This file is located at "/etc/php.ini" normally. The line must be exactly inserted in the section of "Dynamic Extensions", which begins with this commented out text:
--------------------------------
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Dynamic Extensions ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
--------------------------------
Use the "search" feature of gedit to find the text. Add the extension below the commented out note in this section so that the result looks like:
--------------------------------
;;;;
; Note: packaged extension modules are now loaded via the .ini files
; found in the directory /etc/php.d; these are loaded by default.
;;;;
extension=imagick.so
--------------------------------
Putting the extension directly at the top caused me serious permission issues in running Imagick code. Also, with CentOS, the permissions automatically disable user control for this php.ini. Enter the following terminal command: "chown [YOUR-USERNAME] -R /etc/php.ini", without the quotes to get control to modify it. Note to insert your username where it states "[YOUR-USERNAME]".
7. Enter this command: "service httpd restart", without quotes, from admin mode. This restarts Apache/PHP/PHP's extensions now that you've installed ImageMagick. If this gives you an error, just try "service httpd start".
My favorite part about this method is that you can update your system with issuing the "yum update" command and then the "yum upgrade" command -- and the Apache/PHP/Imagick combination will still be working perfectly! Unlike some other guides out there for this, you don't need to rely on antiquated, unsupported versions that can be nearly impossible to find. Also, you don't need to worry about the MySQL, Hash, MBString, Exif packages, because they all seem to be installed and properly cooperating with PHP automatically after installing PHP from the Application Manager. This solution makes everything work well together.
The root directory of your public files is located at /var/www/html/. Normally, this folder is not owned by the user, so you'll get a permission error when trying to add files or folders to it. Correct that with entering admin mode in the terminal/command-line window ("su" command) and entering the following command: "chown [YOUR-USERNAME] -R /var/www/html/", without quotes. Again, replace "[YOUR-USERNAME]" with your actual user name. (Warning: The first time I did this, I was lazy and entered the command for only the "/var/" folder, which prevented my system ever from booting. It would always freeze with the notorious and googleable error-message: "Could not update ICEauthority file /var/lib/gdm/.ICEauthority". So, make sure to change ownership only for "/var/www/html/".)
To view your root directory files as compiled, resultant, PHP pages, open up a browser and enter "127.0.0.1" as the address. So, a file in your root directory would be accessed at the following URL in your browser: http://127.0.0.1/your.file.php . If you get a "could not connect" error message, try the command "service httpd start" at the terminal window from admin mode. (You have to start this service manually every time the machine boots, although there's plenty of ways to automate it.)
I hope this helps! I tried a hundred different guides on getting Apache/PHP/Imagick to work together and none of them worked. Don't give up! ImageMagick is a package of really neat imaging functions!
