[CentOS] Re: PHP 5.2.5 when ?

Wed Jan 16 19:53:22 UTC 2008
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

Michael A. Peters wrote:
> Scott Silva wrote:
>>
>> |
>> I can't understand why people choose an enterprise distro for it's 
>> longevity,
>> and then proceed to try and break it. It is almost like buying a brand 
>> new car
>> and then immediately replacing the engine.
> php is not a major component of RHEL/CentOS.
> Upgrading PHP is not going to break the system. Worst case scenario it 
> does not work as well, in which case it is trivial to remove it and 
> install the vendor version.
> 
> Now if he had been asking for the new version of gnome or something like 
> that, then your analogy would be correct.
> 
> There are legitimate reasons to run CentOS 5 and update the installed php.
> Most users are probably better off with the CentOS provided version, but 
> not everyone fits the description of most users.
> 
> I do what I do because it makes life easier for me. Normally life is 
> easier for me when I do not replace the OS Vendor packages. Sometimes, 
> however, a few things are easier when I do. php 5.2.5 is an example for 
> me. I do not know if it is the case for the OP or not, maybe he would be 
> better with 5.1.x - but if he needs 5.2.x there's a damn good chance 
> installing CentOS and replacing the php will give him a far more stable 
> system then installing Fedora 8 would.

If you knew exactly what you were doing and how to make your own php ... 
and you had a very good reason (a bug that is not be fixed, etc.), then 
that might be the case.

If this were RHEL though, you just lost any php support you could get 
upstream (and anything else that they MIGHT be able to relate to your 
replaced packages).

IF you are willing to do that, I guess it would be fine.

But for MOST users, this is not the case.  And BTW, any of the LAMP 
components I would consider a MAJOR part of the OS.

Since you redid php, you are now possibly going to need to recompile 
many other things including the php-* extensions from DAG's repo and the 
CentOS repos, php-mysql, etc.  I do not know the impact as I have not 
actually done the analysis.  Since /usr/lib/httpd/modules/libphp5.so 
MIGHT be the same name for both (though might have different content), 
you may not need to recompile any apache modules or other items.

But, I still think php is a major item and would probably rebuild my 
whole mysql / php / apache if i was considering a php upgrade.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 252 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20080116/940511d7/attachment-0005.sig>