[NBLUG/talk] php 4 vs. php 5 -- which to use? how to maintain?

[Dave Sisley]

Eric Eisenhart wrote:

>Yes.  Debian stable has php4 (and php3!) packages that are presumably
>patched when there's problems.  RHEL3 and RHEL4 both provide php4, not yet
>php5 and everything provided in those will get patches for years.  CentOS
>and WBEL are free clones of RHEL that provide the same patches by rebuilding
>from source.
>  
>
Thanks for filling me in here, Eric.  I looked at the choices and I'm 
downloading CentOS.  I've been in contact with the developer for the app 
(phppointofsale) and maybe he can figure out how to get it working with 
php5.  If not, I will give CentOS a shot (I'd like to install it on 
something, anyway).

I'm curious, though:  Is there any reason that CentOS wouldn't some day 
update php4 with php5, or is that just not done?  Would I need to 
configure yum to watch out for that?

There's a lot I don't know about how distros maintain their packages and 
how they update them.

-dave.

-- 
Dave Sisley
dsisley at sonic.net
roth-sisley.net