How to run the equivilant of PHP and MySQL on portable media (eg CD, USB and/or iPhone)

Question

I use a local installation of Apache, MySQL, and PHP with XAMPP which require a bit of configuration and installation - is there an alternative language or database system that can be used on portable media such as a CD or DVD-Rom? Although this question is similar to apache-php-and-mysql-portable - I'm looking more for the best portable alternative.

Some thoughts I've had so far are:

Database: data can be stored in csv, txt files, xml, json or xls and accessed via javascript. This would at least allow for reading of data. Is there a simple way of writing to a installation data directory or at least system temporary location?

PHP: Not sure of an alternative but a "server-side" language would help with complex functions.

Otherwise if it's a CD or DVD could part of the installation of the "app" include a PHP/MySQL installation (or equivalent) in a temporary location?

Answer 1

Couldn't you create a LIVE CD/DVD(media) w/an OS that has the stack you need, all pre-configured?

Answer 2

If you jailbreak an iPhone, you can run many popular *nix tools, including web servers. I'm not sure if PHP is ported yet, but it could easily be.

Not necessarily on the iPhone, but you can also use an iPhone as a virtual USB key if you are jailbroken.