How Are We Doing?

stuherbert · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:58 pm Post subject: How Are We Doing?

I want to see Gentoo be the best choice for Apache, for PHP, and ultimately for running web-based applications on. We've put a lot of work into this over the last two years - you can read about that here.

Now I want to know how you think we're doing.

Let us know in this thread please

Best regards,
Stu
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jonnevers · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:05 pm Post subject: Re: How Are We Doing?

codergeek42 · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:07 pm Post subject:

I'm using my Gentoo workstation as a testbed Apache/PHP/PostgreSQL server and things seem to work just fine. I've not encountered any specific problems as of late (using ~x86). Thanks for your hard work.

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nephros · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject:

I think you are doing a good Job!

I simply love the fact that I can check out web-based apps I stumble upon (almost) just as easily as I can do with regular software.

Previously, and on other systems, this usually means having to crawl through lots of upstream or third-party documentation just to get past the "500 Internal Server Error" phase.

With the ebuild einfos and webapp-config this is usually possible in a couple of minutes.

Thanks!

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ultraViolet · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:12 pm Post subject:

I am not really an expert but it think you are doing very well. The use flags are very clear.The only thing which could be somehow an improvement for noobs like me could perhaps to add a "gui" use flag which would emerge existing end user interfaces like webmin to configure all the stuff. Note that I am in no way criticizing the support which is very good to learn the things.
Thanks for all you effort.

int2str · Guru Joined: 29 Sep 2003 Posts: 361

I've been maintaining Apache (and more recently PHP) on various distro's for a very long time now.

Gentoo (now) is singlehandedly the best Distro for the job! After the recent changes, (dev-lang/php etc), PHP/Apache is a snap to install and the "webapps-config" is great as well (if a little tricky to use).

I wish webapp-config was a little less cryptic with it's command line parameters, but Apache and PHP maintenance itself is great on Gentoo!

Please keep up the good work!
Your work is truly appreciated.

Cheers,
Andre
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MmmmJoel · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Jan 2003 Posts: 82

I'd like to see another example or two besides rt in the guide to using the webapp eclass to make ebuilds. I failed to create an ebuild for the simplest webapp I could find (http://planscalendar.com/).

The lack of webapp ebuilds is the only disappointing thing. I hope now that some of the major hurdles have been passed, devs can start fixing and committing the huge backflow of webapp ebuilds in bugs.g.o to the tree. In general, though, I think webapp-config is the best thing to happen to distro-support for webapps. Congrats.

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

I have a home server (which I admit does little) running apache2, dev-lang/php-5, mysql 4.1, etc. All runs smoothly with no problems at all. I remember compiling that little lot by hand when I used Slackware to get it the way I wanted.. With Gentoo it's significantly easier, it all just works.

The sooner you get dev-lang/php in the stable branch, and everything else depending on it instead of the older ebuilds, the better.

andybotting · n00b Joined: 06 Jun 2005 Posts: 16

I think you're doing a fantastic job. To be able to just emerge all the web apps I want (wordpress, mediawiki, phpbb, whatever) along with apache, mysql and php and make it work with minimal effort is miles ahead of anything else i've seen on other distros. It's the mix of flexibility, power and security of Gentoo that keeps me coming back and recommending it to my friends.

One thought I had the other day was that (not necessarily with webapp-config) but emerge in general is that if I am emerging a lot of packages and not exactly watching, I sometimes miss the notes that you get after emering a particular package. I know I could probably find these in emerge.log, but wouldn't it be nice if emerge had another option (like what I was hearing about with emerge --news) that showed you all the warnings and info from the newly installed packages?

nice work

rl03 · Retired Dev Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 27

mordredP · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:57 am Post subject:

My server runs apache2, MySql and php, and everything works very well.. as others have suggested i'd only improve webapp-config.. My desktop and my server are my first linux experiences but i must tell thet gentoo is a very nice distro, it automates the boring and mechanical operations (with emerge) and gives you a lot of control on what you install.

(a happy user)
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ciaranm · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:08 am Post subject:

It'd be nice if all those ebuilds followed the frickin' policy...

MmmmJoel · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Jan 2003 Posts: 82

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remi2402 · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:36 pm Post subject:

Just like jonnevers pointed out a few posts before, I also used to manually compile apache and php from source, at a time when php support in gentoo meant hours and hours of fiddling. Now the whole process is entirely painless.

I think the one thing that could be improved is documentation, although it's far from critical.

Just a few days ago I had no trouble setting up a named vhost in apache for mediawiki using webapp-config. However, I just didn't know what webapp-config was used for, what it could do, etc. It was a friend who pointed it to me, telling me that's what I was looking for. The man page is very well written and I got things working in less than 10 minutes, but maybe a gentoo.org apache guide could help and point users/admin to the right tool more quickly.

It's like gentoolkit, very few people know about it, and it's a crying shame.

Anyhow, webapp-config is a brilliant tool, I was really impressed when I saw what it could do.

Kudos to all php/apache/... maintainers.

Rémi

rl03 · Retired Dev Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 27

ludite · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 4:31 pm Post subject:

I love the PHP / APACHE combo running on my gentoo servers.

It's easy to update and stay on top off.

Thanks for the hard work.

GoofballJM1 · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:12 pm Post subject:

I have been very very pleased with the apache/php setup using gentoo. I have two gentoo LAMP servers running (one at work, one at home), and I am always amazed by how easy portage is to use to upgrade stuff.

One thing that I have had NO problems with is the upgrade to PHP5. In fact, I had more problems with the older stable releases of PHP4 (4.4+) than I have had with PHP5. I was having some issues running some web based apps (horde, phpmyadmin, webcalendar, postnuke, phpldapadmin) the last month that were driving me nuts. So I upgraded to PHP5 and they were fixed instantly, on both machines. In fact, my PHP5 stuff runs significantly faster than with PHP4. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this. One server is an old P3 500 and the other machine is a P4 2.0.

Another thing is I like the consolidation of the apache module into the php5 install, it makes installing and upgrading much faster.

I love USE flags. vhosts and webapp-config are my friend! I have had virtually no problems running the latest stuff. Great work!

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streaky · n00b Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 16

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stuherbert · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:46 pm Post subject:

streaky · n00b Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 16

OK, I admit it, I've been awake 24 hours, ignore what I just said, though at some stage people need to rewrite code else you could ask questions like why php 1, 2 and 3 aren't in there, I think that's my main point.
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streaky · n00b Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 16

But DOMXML and stuff are in the PECL repos of course..

/me shuts up
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CHTEKK · Retired Dev Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 458

streaky · n00b Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 16

So I guess the moral is, don't use PHP or don't use obscure(ish) extensions

Oh I hate PHP sometimes.
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