CentOS - Feb 2010 - how to push the bounds and get newer packages for centos 5.4?

i've just started looking after a (virtual) centos 5.4 server that's
hosted at rackspace and, unsurprisingly, it was set up with all the
standard defaults.  part of the work i'll be doing involves php and,
as i read it, the standard php version with centos 5.4 is php-5.1.

  if i *wanted* to move up to a more recent version (say, php-5.3),
obviously, i'd need to go outside the limits of the standard centos
yum repos.  in my travels, i ran across this site:

http://blog.famillecollet.com/pages/Config-en

with the corresponding instructions:

wget
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm
wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-5.rpm
rpm -Uvh remi-release-5*.rpm epel-release-5*.rpm

  i'm suitably leery of 3rd-party repos but i recall that someone else
(on this list?) recommended that site.  and i can see that it has an
x86_64 version of php-5.3 ready to go for centos 5.4:

http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/5/remi/x86_64/repoview/php.html

  what are the recommendations for well-respected 3rd-party repos for
centos 5.4 if i want to get newer packages?  the centos 5.4 system in
question is purely an internal development system so i have the
freedom to customize it to some extent if newer packages are called
for.  thanks.

rday
--

=======================================================================Robert P.
J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
========================================================================

Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   i've just started looking after a (virtual) centos 5.4 server
that's
> hosted at rackspace and, unsurprisingly, it was set up with all the
> standard defaults.  part of the work i'll be doing involves php and,
> as i read it, the standard php version with centos 5.4 is php-5.1.
> 
>   if i *wanted* to move up to a more recent version (say, php-5.3),
> obviously, i'd need to go outside the limits of the standard centos
> yum repos.  in my travels, i ran across this site:
> 
> http://blog.famillecollet.com/pages/Config-en
> 
> with the corresponding instructions:
> 
> wget
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm
> wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-5.rpm
> rpm -Uvh remi-release-5*.rpm epel-release-5*.rpm
> 
>   i'm suitably leery of 3rd-party repos but i recall that someone else
> (on this list?) recommended that site.  and i can see that it has an
> x86_64 version of php-5.3 ready to go for centos 5.4:
> 
> http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/5/remi/x86_64/repoview/php.html
> 
>   what are the recommendations for well-respected 3rd-party repos for
> centos 5.4 if i want to get newer packages?  the centos 5.4 system in
> question is purely an internal development system so i have the
> freedom to customize it to some extent if newer packages are called
> for.  thanks.
I use epel (has a lot of different stuff but generally does not have newer 
versions of standard packages), rpmforge (sometimes has newer stuff and may 
cause some conflicts) remi (up to date ocsinventory-server, php, mysql), and 
opennms (Sun JVM 1.5 and opennms).  Normally I leave epel enabled in the yum 
configuration and disable the others.  Then I can
yum --enablerepo=xxx install somepackage
and normally not pick up conflicting dependencies, and do the same for updates 
after doing a full update from the base and epel repos.  It is probably still 
possible to break something this way but it seems safer than trying to make yum 
guess where to get things.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com

> I use epel (has a lot of different stuff but generally does not have newer
> versions of standard packages), rpmforge (sometimes has newer stuff and may
> cause some conflicts) remi (up to date ocsinventory-server, php, mysql),
and
> opennms (Sun JVM 1.5 and opennms). ?Normally I leave epel enabled in the
yum
We use as well:

- EPEL: their missions statement is that they will NEVER update base:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#Does_EPEL_replace_packages_provided_within_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_or_layered_products.3F

- RpmForge: but we rather tend to enable it and use includepkgs in the
repo file to add the packages we are interested in (in order to get
their updates)

- ElRepo: useful for drivers for a desktop install

- for all other stuff we tend to rebuild SRPMS picked-up at different
places and maintain our own repositories (using createrepo to generate
the metadata, and putting them on a standard httpd server, this is not
a big deal).

Good sources for SRPMS are
  - the personal repo of Karanbir: http://centos.karan.org/
  - older fedora distributions (going down from the latest to Fedora
6), sometimes requires a bit of hacking of the spec files:
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist
  - finally, looking in RPM search engines for the proper SRPM: like
http://rpm.pbone.net/

Then there are also "specialized" repositories that may address your
needs.

Some that I heard of but not really tested:
- Latest PHP and Python (you may be especially interested in this
one!): http://iuscommunity.org/packages/
(there was some arguments around it in the docs mailing list:
http://www.mail-archive.com/centos-docs at centos.org/msg03260.html)
- PostgreSQL: http://yum.pgsqlrpms.org/
- etc.

On 2/18/2010 8:20 AM, Mathieu Baudier wrote:
>> I use epel (has a lot of different stuff but generally does not have
newer
>> versions of standard packages), rpmforge (sometimes has newer stuff and
may
>> cause some conflicts) remi (up to date ocsinventory-server, php,
mysql), and
>> opennms (Sun JVM 1.5 and opennms).  Normally I leave epel enabled in
the yum
>
> We use as well:
>
> - EPEL: their missions statement is that they will NEVER update base:
>
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#Does_EPEL_replace_packages_provided_within_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_or_layered_products.3F
You have to take mission statements with a grain of salt.  There was a 
time when you would get java-1.6.0.openjdk from epel instead of the 
stock version - and things like that will probably happen again as the 
base repos decide to duplicate things that already exist in 3rd party 
locations.  They have a history of never making any effort to coordinate 
that process.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com

On 18/02/2010 13:06, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>
>    i've just started looking after a (virtual) centos 5.4 server
that's
> hosted at rackspace and, unsurprisingly, it was set up with all the
> standard defaults.  part of the work i'll be doing involves php and,
> as i read it, the standard php version with centos 5.4 is php-5.1.
>
>    if i *wanted* to move up to a more recent version (say, php-5.3),
> obviously, i'd need to go outside the limits of the standard centos
> yum repos.  in my travels, i ran across this site:
>
<snip>

The CentOS testing repository has php-5.2 available if this would 
be any use to you.

See here for instructions:-

http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/PHP_5.1_To_5.2

http://blog.bit-matrix.com/2009/10/22/how-to-install-php-52-on-centos-5/