Hardware and performance

Hi Eric

> I understand the minimum requirements but it is the hardware that we have that is limiting us.

Did you mention the hardware?

> As I mentioned, my institution is running RHEL 5.8 on its server

Whatever the hardware is, if it can run RHEL, there can't be a problem.

> and the IT company looking after the system is telling us they can't run MySQL 5.1.33 or above on that setup.

MySQL 5.1.33 is the minimum since Moodle 2.3. For Moodle 2.0 - 2.2 it is MySQL 5.0.25 (source http://download.moodle.org ).

> I get the feeling it is more a case of they don't want to update mysql and that is why I was asking if anyone knew if it were really the case - can you or can't you run MySQL 5.1.33 or above on RHEL 5.8.

Sure, you can run newer MySQL versions on RHEL. There are plenty of binaries (rpms) around or one can always compile the LAMP stack from source.

You must talk to the system administrators. It might be very well possible that they don't want to upgrade system software - possibly for a valid reason. There are systems where the long term stability is of prime importance, like in finance institutions. They go for RHEL. Moodle is meant for desktop users, who can't wait to see (and feel) the latest (shyniest) software on their screens.

You can't have both. May be you can ask the administrators to set up a virtual machine for you. Since they have the know-how in RedHat, CentOS would be the most natural choice.

> There is no problem with the installation per se, more the performance of the setup involved and that is why I chose this forum.

Do you say, you have installed Moodle 2.4 and having performance problems?

> If you think it is more related to installation, then I will of course defer to your judgement. Again, many thanks for your ongoing support and assistance.

No problem. We can leave this thread in the "Hardware and Performance" forum until the question "installation or performance" is clarified.