pouët.net

As most of untergrund users read pouet bss I guess it must be a good place to post this. We, at escena.org, were working on a new system for the site, simpler and easier to work with that the one we have now (cakePHP).

We were considering doing it on PHP5, which has been out for years now, but untergrund has PHP4 and there aren't other alternatives for us to host the site. Is this something other untergrund users would like to have or is it just us?

In case someone behind untergrund read this... is there any reason why untergrund didn't move to PHP5 yet?

http://gophp5.org/

also, don't use cakephp. i used to be happy, then i started using cakephp, and now i'm suicidal. and phpnut is a moron.

trace: We've got ~400 users at untergrund.net. An upgrade from PHP4 to PHP5 would break stuff for lots of users, and it would become a support nightmare. We can't go this route.

The plan is to do this the same way we did last time untergrund.net got upgraded: A new, next-generation server will be setup with then-stable releases of all software packages, it will go into beta and new users then will be hosted on the new server, with old users moving over to it within a phase of a few months.

I'm planning to start working on this this fall.

IOW: Don't expect untergrund.net to support PHP5 before the end of the year.

I don't mean to nag, and deciding how to run untergrund.net is always your own choice (and a great service to the scene, so kudos), but:

I do not really agree with your reasons; can't you simply warn your users to update their scripts to be PHP5-compatible before a certain date, and then make the switch? Maybe alternatively allowing a .php4 extension that invokes PHP4, for people who refuse to care more than that? I mean, your users still are not paying customers or anything, isn't running non-archaic software as important a service as supporting everything ever programmed by anyone?

Or, as an alternative, make php4 default but install PHP5 linked to .php5 files? This way people like trace making new stuff, now, can just use that extension and things are fine..

(i wonder, by the way, why PHP stopped the ".php3" convention in favour of ".php"; if all php apps written for php4 had had .php4 extensions, and ditto for php5 etc, this problem would've never occurred, anywhere)

skrebbel: I guess external libraries that works with multiple versions etc would be a hassle to deal with then. But version specific extensions for version specific files isn't such a bad idea.

that's more of an apache config though i guess.

skrebbel: There is more to it than PHP. untergrund.net v3 runs on Debian Sarge, and that is an EOL distro. Upgrading php on that system would mean using non-distro packages, and probably tons of dependencies to resolve by hand.

Also, "warning" users doesn't change the fact that if things stop working, they'll mail me asking for help.

Plus: All this can't do done on a production system, so I'd have to fetch a copy of the whole system onto a second server beforehand anyway.

It's time for a fresh start with new server-hardware that will be able to handle the growth of the next 3-4 years, based on a current distribution offering long-term-support. Far cleaner, far safer, enables beta phase, and enables to solve a lot of problems by throwing money at them instead of time.

gargaj, but apache is configured just how the PHP docs suggest it. people just copy and paste lines from the INSTALL file, or such. i was talking about the convention, which is promoted by the PHP folks and not by the web server authors.

scamp, fair enough - i forgot how dependency mixes make updating things horrible sometimes on linux. good luck with the change, at least!

I switched from php4->php5 on www.scene.se without any problems at all with the code base... so just do the switch and let the users adapt if they need, there shouldn't be any big issues that I'm aware of.

opinions, everybody has one.

suicide chosen.

www.apt-get.org knows several sites that provide sarge backports of php5, if anyone wanted to go that route

On the other hand, I did not have any problem when dist-upgrading a few sarge machines to etch (you won't get latest php automatically), but it might be a problem if you still run versions of software that were obsolete in sarge (for example by upgrading from woody) or if you installed lots of non-distro packages. Upgrading from php4 to php5 primarily depends on your php configuration; usually there are no noticable problems except that php5 features suddenly work :)

On the other hand, if you need new hardware anyway, starting from scratch is not a bad idea either. Depending on how much urge you get from users who want to have php5 :)

PS: Sourceforge still runs PHP4 as well ;)

PPS: As ps said: everyone has an opinion *g*

I think that scamp's idea is the sanest, from an administrator's point of view :)

heh at this moment just skip php5 and wait for php6 :>

not a very bad idea, really.

Uhm... ok. We'll have to wait a bit then :)

For those who care:

We'll start setting up new, powerful (and I mean powerful) hardware to be used as the main server (the one serving HTTP content) next week. We'll probably start migrating existing sites some time in July. Move is expected to be completed in August. And then we'll also support PHP5.

!\o/! Thanks!! !\o/!

Woo! Good timing, I have an untergrund account but nothing on it yet, and php5 will be much easier as I'm already well versed in it. And I was planning to start putting stuff up this week as I have some work that will go there ready.

Scamp: Feel free to move my site whenever you want - I'll stick plain html up for now. By the way, I've never had any mail about my account since it was set up, and I've mailed the address on the untergrund page a couple of times to ask about it. I've figured out what password I put in originally now, so I think I can use it, but it's odd that I never got any email back (my address is psonice at gmail.com, and I also added my work email in my last enquiry).

Same here, feel free to migrate escena to php5.

Any update on this? :)