[imp] PHP frustrations with IMP install

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2001 at 03:20:00PM +1000, Robin Whittle wrote:
> 
> The trouble I (and I guess others) face is that I have no idea or
> particular interest in the various flavours of PHP, the various phplib
> things and other preliminaries which are (or were) needed for IMP.  I
> just want clear guidance on what to install so we can get on with IMP. 
> This poses a challenge for the IMP documentation, because the doco tries
> to be general, tries to cope with many systems and potentially many
> versions of PHP and its friends.  In doing so, the documentation can
> become out of date and very hard to follow for someone (like me) who
> doesn't already know their way around PHP.
>

Someone who doesnt care about this stuff? I'd really recommend
you use an OS with a decent packaging system like Free/OpenBSD.

On OpenBSD, the procedure for getting Apache-SSL/PHP4 up and running
is:

$ cd /usr/ports/www/php4
$ FLAVOR="mysql imap" make install 

I hear Slackware is pretty good also.  But this mess of RPMs
distributed all over the place is always something that has annoyed
me (and largely prompted my switch to the *BSDs)

> most appropriate fashion, as I document on my web page.  This lead me to
> install a number of Horde-customised or Horde-approved PHP RPMs from the
> Horde site - which were earlier than packages already installed on my
> fresh RH7.1 system and which involved adding additional packages as
> well. That is where I got into trouble - but it took me a while to
> realise it, since installing the packages did not stop Apache from
> running.  It was some time later that I found that Apache would not
> restart - then I had to backtrack figure out what I had installed and
> try to uninstall bits of it (and maybe re-install later versions in
> their place) to figure out whatever were the crucial things which upset
> Apache.  The IMP doco was no assistance at all in this.

Should it have been?  I have no idea what you did or were doing there :)

> > 5. We ditched phplib in the latest version. Boom, things get easier.
> 
> OK.  Perhaps the problems I have were erased by these changes.

> What is needed is for one person who does understands PHP, IMP etc.
> fully, to rewrite the documentation as a single file, or at least as a
> more carefully linked set of files, with clear guidance which enables
> someone know knows nothing about PHP, IMP etc. to choose whether to
> follow an RPM approach or a source installation approach.  Having chosen
> the best approach, the documentation should provide a clear path for how
> to proceed.  This involves clear guidance on setting up PHP and its
> friends - including a rough explanation of what all these things do, how
> they relate and why they are needed.

Well, this is easy for you to say.  If we start getting into how to install
PHP, then why not also help you out in getting that operating system
installed?

Take IMP-2.4 ... when it is released, the requirements are pretty
simple:

PHP-4.0.7, with PEAR, IMAP, gettext, mysql

Of course, there are other optional ones (and you can swap mysql
for something else, but this is a good basic one).

Why cant you go read your operating system docs on the recommended
way to install PHP?

http://www.php.net/manual/en/installation.php contains extensive
instructions on this.

So you may then find out you need a webserver to get PHP running.
Go install that, verify it's working, then install PHP.

Or use a decent OS which provides a good framework to install
all these components quickly (as my OpenBSD example above)

But the point is that you can install PHP completely separately
from Horde/IMP, before you even START installing Horde/IMP,
and you can test it independently of Horde/IMP.

> Its not for me to rewrite the IMP documentation - and I think patches
> would be exactly the wrong approach.   There needs to be a detailed,
> unified set of documentation which anticipates a wide range of needs and
> which helps people who know nothing about PHP or IMP etc.  It needs to
> be written by someone who fully understands the IMP project and all it
> depends upon, but it needs to be written with a keen eye to how it will
> be followed by someone who starts off knowing *nothing* except basic
> systems administration.

I think a detailed, unified document is exactly the wrong 
approach.  We could write one for you, but then what about the
next guy who wants to run IMP on Win2k w/ SQL Server?  I suspect
those notes would be somewhat different from your setup ...

More important is you understanding how the underlying components
that make up your system actually interact.

Anil