Re: PHP on slackware

Shridhar,

I've been running Slackware 9.0 for about a year and have been pretty happy,
but -- as with any distribution -- I have had to compile when I wanted
something that was not provided.

Generally speaking, any time you want to make a custom setup that someone
else didn't anticipate, you have to run the compiler. Please remember, the
developers of Slackware (and every other piece of OpenSource software) are
providing a free service. They deserve nothing but praise for giving their
work away.

Also, if they included every possible option in the pre-compiled binary
packages, those packages would become unreasonably large and inefficient. So
they include only the most common options.

I suggest rolling up your sleeves:

-- download the PHP tarball (from the PHP project page),
-- untar it in /usr/local/src, then cd into the directory
-- type "./configure --help | more" (no quotes) and read it.
-- Take notes on what options you want to include with configure. They will
all go together on the command line when you run ./configure. For example,
there might be an option "--with-pgsql" or some such, optionally followed by
"=" [the location of the pgsql libraries on your system].

Then go for it, it's not that hard. Once you've run "./configure" with the
options that you want, you typically will just type "make", then "make
install". While the compiler is running, you can always continue Googling.
If ./configure chokes, find out why and try to fix the problem. That
sometimes requires a little sleuthing, but almost never takes more than a
couple days.

Alternatively, perhaps you could offer to pay the developer of Slackware (or
someone else) a consulting fee to roll you a custom version.

Shawn Harrison

P.S. I apologize if others consider the original post too off-topic for a
reply -- tell me if you think so. But it seemed necessary to address the
underlying assumptions. Thanks.---SAH

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shridhar Daithankar" <shridhar(at)frodo(dot)hserus(dot)net>
To: <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 9:50 AM
Subject: [GENERAL] PHP on slackware

> ....
> Frankly I am irritated. I don't want to compile any damn stuff. Slack has
> worked so far for me but it's postgresql support is lamer than I could
have
> thought..
> ......
> DAMN SLACK!!! Off to googling..
>
> Shridhar