PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

by Graham Stone -
Number of replies: 6
Picture of Testers

Hi all,

I am currently trying to upgrade our current 2.4 Moodle to the latest 2.7 however this currently fails due to our server only having PHP 5.3.17 and not the required 5.4.  I have asked our 'server guy' to upgrade this and he has informed me that our Operating System (Suse Linux) doesn't support PHP 5.4.  First of all is this correct and if so what can we do to get around this major problem??  It seems strange to me that Moodle would require a version of PHP that current Operating Systems can't use but then maybe our version of Linux isn't very good (i must admit here that I have limited knowledge of Linux platforms so please forgive me).

Any help or advice would be very greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

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In reply to Graham Stone

Re: PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

A quick glance on the Interweb shows that SuSE 13.1 (the current version) ships with PHP 5.4

Presumably that means that what you actually need to do is to upgrade the operating system to the latest version. 

SuSE used to be very popular but has now achieved a rather niche status. The only thing wrong with that is that you might think a distribution with more users will have more support and testing...

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

by jason everling -

I think he is using the real supported version of SUSE, or Suse Linux Enterprise Server which the current version is 11 SP3 . Version 12 will be out soon and I still do not think it has the required PHP version, https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/12/ . This shows PHP 5.3 still.

Graham, you will need to compile PHP 5.4 for Suse or use the repositories for OpenSuse. Either option will more than likely break your support contract and you will no longer receive support for PHP from Novell.

http://software.opensuse.org/package/php54

SUSE was once a great product and I wish they would update it more frequently or at least build the latest versions of software into the next release. It would be nice because we get free support from Novell for SUSE since we have VMware Vsphere.


JASON

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In reply to jason everling

Re: PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

by Graham Stone -
Picture of Testers

HI Jason / Howard,

Thank you both for replying, i've now had confirmation back from my infrastructure team and unfortunately we are as you guessed using the Novell version angry

As the upgrade to 2.7 is very important for us and needs to be done this month I've requested a meeting with our system architect to discuss a new Moodle server build.  What would you both recommend I go for?

Cheers, 

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In reply to Graham Stone

Re: PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

The reality is that it depends what they know and can support. 

My advice (this week anyway) is that the easiest distro to install and configure that will run 2.7 out of the box is Ubuntu 14.04LTS. And... you have the extra confidence that huge numbers of people already use it. 

However, that is just my opinion. I have some very big sites running on CentOS. I don't like it much, but that's what (in those cases) the server support people felt happier with. 

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In reply to Graham Stone

Re: PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

by jason everling -

+1 To Howard's suggestion, Go Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS , 5 Years of Security Updates! It is not difficult moving from SuSE to Ubuntu. As Howard says, it will meet all the requirements for Moodle 2.7 out of the box.

If they want a supported product, you can suggest purchasing Ubuntu Advantage, it is awesome to have in an Enterprise Environment, we have it, and the support team at Canonical can do wonders in complex situations! 

http://www.ubuntu.com/management/ubuntu-advantage

I even made a Youtube video following the documentation I wrote up to make it easier for new Ubuntu users.

http://docs.moodle.org/27/en/Step-by-step_Installation_Guide_for_Ubuntu


JASON

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In reply to jason everling

Re: PHP 5.4 and Suse Linux Problems

by Peter Dorman -

This might be a bit late for your requirements but we have recently upgraded to Moodle 2.7 on SuSE (SLES 11 SP3).  I used the unofficial/unsupported PHP 5.5 packages downloaded from http://software.opensuse.org/package/php5

Click on the SUSE SLE-11 SP 3 section and Show unstable packages.  I used the devel:languages:php build rather than any of the home: ones.

If you search for php5 there is an option to show 57 sub-packages.  All the PHP extensions that Moodle needs are under there.


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