Magento 1.7 Multiple Sites Install on Ubuntu Linux

How To Install Multiple Stores in Magento 1.7
These are my notes. I do not profess to be a professional Magento developer.

This guide is for a pure SSH install using Rsync. Now given that you are proficient with SSH and command line Linux, the install of Magento is not difficult if you also can:

Create a MySQL database, user and grant privileges
Create a VirtualHost in Apache2

Download Magento from the Magento site
Unzip the package
Use Rsync to copy the unziped directory to your server

Many online guides use in their examples /magento/ or /public_html/ as root folders, I use the Apache root and a domain folder like this /var/www/www.magento-files.com/ – I do not use this domain for any store so you can name this whatever you like.

Create a folder for each site. re. /var/www/www.bigstore.com/
Copy the index.php and .htaccess files in www.magento-files.com to both www.bigstore.com and www.littlestore.com

SO: we have 3 sites. the Default, Bigstore and Littlestore

You need to edit the code in each site:
in www.magento-files.com add this code to index.php

To both www.bigstore.com and www.littlestore.com
change index.php lines

Create Admin and database connection in Magento Setup

Creating the websites in the Magento admin, along with a store and store view

Configuring the URL structure of the new site

Add categories and products
Associate products with the new website