Re: Redhad Fedora

Hi Warren,

At 2005-01-31 01:36, Warren Vail wrote:
>I finally tried to implement my own linux box and experienced difficulty
>connecting to mysql from PHP applications.  I struggled with the issue
>for a while, then began researching if other people were having similar
>problems.  I am writing this list because the difficulty I am
>experiencing reminds me of tactics employed by IBM and Microsoft to
>maintain their hold on their customers, or so it appears to me.

I have been using Linux for a long time and in about the
right order: Yggdrasil, Slackware, Infomagic, Redhat, Mandrake.

I was using Xenix and DEC OSF professionally and only with
Redhat 5 or 6 I started to get really impressed by Linux.
Mandrake was based on Redhat but even more user-friendly.
I haven't tried Redhat later, so it might even have become
better than Mandrake again.

What I usually do is upgrade/install a complete version
of Mandrake.

Lately I have found that upgrading an installation is a waste
of time (takes several hours) and it's much better to install
a new version (takes about 20 minutes) and then copy your
own user directory to that new installation.

(In case of several users you could use a seperate /home
partition.)

>The version of linux I tried to implement from CD's which accompanied a
>rather large book on Linux Fedora Core 2.

Software that comes with books is usually out-of-date and
not very well tested.

>It seems that the apache
>server that came with the Redhat Fedora version, came with php
>implemented as an apache module (mod_php).  Running php_info() disclosed
>that php had been compiled with "--with-mysql=shared,/usr" yet
>attempting to access mysql results in "cannot load mysql extension,
>please check PHP Configuration" after installing phpMyAdmin, even though
>services report "mysqld (pid 2890) is running...".  So I then found that
>there was an option to install "php_mysql", but when attempting to
>install the application I get "Unlocatable package "php", required by
>('php-mbstring','4.3.10','2.4')". 

These problems are very commen when trying to compile PHP.
I have found it almost impossible to resolve all these
library issues by hand. It's much easier to install a
completely new Mandrake (or other distribution) version,
so all the libraries are consistent again. After that
I usually compile a new version of PHP, because that
usually is outdated even in a new version of Mandrake.
I don't try to install the latest libraries for whatever
functionality but just try what can be easily compiled
in and what not and if I can live with the selection
that works.

I found that you can easily spend days trying to gather
libraries and trying to get them consistent and to
compile them into PHP and not to get it working in the
end anyway.

>My point in all this is this seems to be the only difficulty I had with
>the install, and with my paranoia working overtime, I began to notice
>that;
>1. PHP was carried in the product as a Web server add-on only and not a
>development language.

PHP can be run as a web server add-in or a command line interface
(=CLI) interpreter.

When you managed to compile PHP the CLI version is also build
somewhere I think. You may have to copy it to a 'usr/bin'-like
library.

It's a standalone program, so you can also copy it from another
Linux implementation (for the same CPU, usually 386+), I'd think.

(Let me know and I'll send you my version.)

>2. The php interface module seemed to be missing even though the
>php_info seemed to think it was pre-configured (the binaries certainly
>didn't execute as if it were installed).
>3. there seemed to be much confusion about which modules were included
>and which weren't (probably caused by my lack of experience).

You'd have to include them in the httpd.conf file or the php.ini
file or such. It's quite a study to get these things right,
but document them clearly and it will be easier the next
year.

Please consider that CD-ROM's that come with books are either
based on even older proven software or haven't had the benefit
of feedback from customers and that writing a book is hard
enough, so the authors didn't spend much time on the CD-ROM.
CD-ROM's are a sales argument however, so the publishers
want to add a CD-ROM whatever shit is on it... ;-)

O'Reilly, which I think most of us see as one of the more
serious publishers hardly ever adds a CD to it's books
and rightly so I hesitantly have to admit... (I really
like the idea of an extra CD that might be full of
information even if the book turns out to be utter crap...)

>Red Hat recently split development between the open source version
>(Fedora) and the version that it was selling (Enterprise), and my
>paranoia suggests that to break the most commonly used DB in its install
>of PHP would encourage more than one site to consider shelling out cash
>for the Enterprise edition (where I assume these problems don't exist),
>suggesting that if the break was not intentional, it was at least
>fortuitous (the kind of thing that the other big boys have all done to
>boost their own sales, or so they deny).

Well, paranoia is a hobby for life! But I think you should reconsider.

I once bought an expensive version of RedHat and it just
wasn't perfect and it didn't ment free full RedHat versions
from then on. You basically pay for the book that's included
in the package and you pay 50% to the local retailer. And
when you order it via the internet you pay for international
shipping and banking costs.

Lately I usually buy a 10..15 euro magazine that comes with the latest
version of Mandrake or I buy it from a CD-R company specializing
in selling the latest Linux versions.

>My concern is that PHP will suffer in credibility as a result of this.

I think that the version issue is something that the Linux
community will have to solve in a much broader perspective
than PHP alone.

RPM (Redhat's program manager) is a much too primitive
way of solving these issues. (I have been fantazising about
writing a PHP based program to handle the interrelations
between all of these libraries and applications...)

>Does this list become involved in this kind of thing?  Just curious.

This list is about PHP evangelism, so about converting
the 'not-yet-PHP-believers'. It's probably based on how
Apple apostels are creating awareness for their belief
system.

Personally I don't think PHP really needs it since it's
a natural best solution to many classes of problems and
when you start hyping a good thing you make it suspect...