[horde] Pear issues, Ubuntu 12.04 and Horde 4

[chris at dotchristopher.com]

Hi all!

Sorry to have to ask but this is quite literally my last step to  
server perfection and I've been tearing my hair out! I've been trying  
to get activesync working from a groupware solution for a small  
office. Originally I'd installed eGroupware, which works very well but  
requires z-push for activesync. But Horde to the rescue- Horde 4  
already does this! Fantastic! Now to install it...

Following the published instructions I came across an issue that a few  
people have already experienced  
(http://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=18450) which points to the fact  
that I probably have a broken/custom pear installation, although I'm  
sure I don't. Trying to specify/hardlink to the correct pear config  
file (my system shows pear.conf at /etc/pear/pear.conf although pear  
config-show states /etc/pear.conf) however still fails with the same  
error

Code:
Could not save horde_dir configuration value to PEAR config.

No worries then, let's just reinstall PEAR I thought..

Code:
apt-get remove --purge and apt-get install php-pear

(also php-log, which seemingly got caught as dependent). I already  
have a working PEAR setup (including, amongst many others  
HTTP_Download), but not to worry- a quick re-install should sort  
everything out.

Thing is, the apt-get remove --purge seems to have left PEAR in an  
inconsistent state.
When I tried to go back and start from step 1 of the Horde install  
docs (http://www.horde.org/apps/webmail/do...#quick-install) I was  
told that the horde pear channel pear.horde.org already existed. Hold  
on... what about --purge?! No matter, I tried to run the install  
script to install the horde_role, which failed complaining that the  
files didn't exist (fair enough, really), but that doesn't help. I  
can't re-init the horde_role because it's marked as already installed.  
Clearly not so --purge.

Never mind, let's just remove the channel.

Code:
  pear channel-delete pear.horde.org

tells me

Code:
Channel "pear.horde.org" has installed packages, cannot delete

What?! --purge?!

Never mind, let's find the packages so we can remove them:

Code:
root at alt:/etc/echonest-server/util# pear list -c pear.horde.org
Installed packages, channel pear.horde.org:
===========================================
Package    Version State
Horde_Role 1.0.0   stable
root at a:/etc/# pear uninstall horde_role
pear/horde_role not installed

PEAR seems to make distinction between upper and lower case
Code:

root at a:/etc/# pear uninstall Horde_Role
pear/Horde_Role not installed

WHAT?!

Ok then, what about HTTP_Download?

Code:
root at a:/etc/# pear install HTTP_Download
pear/HTTP_Download is already installed and is the same as the  
released version 1.1.4

Strange... although even that seems to be a lie... attempting to use  
my known good HTTP_Download app hangs when it tries to, er, perform a  
http file download. In fact it crashed my browser when I was half way  
through posting this.

Please, has anyone got any suggestions? Preferably, I'd love to trash  
*everything* belonging to PEAR and start again. Although I'm sure this  
was just a stock 12.04x64 (dist-upgrade from 10.04) installation  
originally via apt-get install php-pear.

Has anyone else experienced this config issue with Horde 4? Has anyone  
successfully setup Horde 4 on Ubuntu 12.04?

Thanks in advance for all your help or suggestions!