How Are We Doing?

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stuherbert · Post by **stuherbert** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:58 pm

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

jonnevers · Post by **jonnevers** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:05 pm

stuherbert wrote: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

I've run my server with gentoo/apache/PHP/mysql for something like 4 years now. Back in the day, I used to install the whole stack manually to avoid having to deal with portage.

Recently, around the time apache2 was the stable gentoo branch, I started using portage again to maintain my apache/PHP installations. The whole process has improved a hundred fold so that now using portage is easier then manually installing the packages. The configuration file changes introduced in the latest version was a bit of an unexpected pain, but for the better I suppose.

codergeek42 · Post by **codergeek42** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:07 pm

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.

nephros · Post by **nephros** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:11 pm

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!

ultraViolet · Post by **ultraViolet** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:12 pm

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 · Post by **int2str** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:19 pm

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

MmmmJoel · Post by **MmmmJoel** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:32 pm

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 · Post by **Monkeh** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:32 pm

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 · Post by **andybotting** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 11:22 pm

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 · Post by **rl03** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 11:41 pm

MmmmJoel wrote: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/).

That's a good point. I would suggest 3 things:

1. Read man webapp.eclass. No, really. This isn't just an RTFM, but an essential first step in understanding how the whole thing works.
2. Look at a few simple ebuilds in the tree. joomla, phpmyadmin, egroupware and gallery are some of the easier ones.
3. Then, if you want more advanced stuff, take a look at some more advanced ebuilds and reconfig scripts. www-apps/rt and www-apps/otrs are good examples.

Also, if you need help, try bugging me or Stuart on #gentoo-web, I'll be happy to help out.

mordredP · Post by **mordredP** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:57 am

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)

ciaranm · Post by **ciaranm** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:08 am

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

MmmmJoel · Post by **MmmmJoel** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:53 am

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

Yes, that has been a large bump in the learning process.

For example, many of the webapps don't use the portage abstractions that I'm assuming they should be using (I don't know for sure, I just know abstractions are usually put there for a reason.) For example, most webapps I looked at used naked sed and chmod operations that could be accomplished with portage's dosed and exeinto and insinto abstractions. Obviously it's not necessary if they're in the tree, but I don't when it's appropriate.

I also ran across several webapp.eclass-specific differences in ebuilds. It's tough to tell which I should model from.

BTW Ciaran, your dev manual is awesome. Thanks for the consise & to-the-point writing style.

rl03 wrote:Also, if you need help, try bugging me or Stuart on #gentoo-web, I'll be happy to help out.

I tried once, and my question was the only activity in the channel for 3 days! I'll have to take another crack at it.

Here was my first attempt if you want to take a quick look. I don't seem to be in the right working dir during the src_install.

j-m · Post by **j-m** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 11:34 am

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

Could you perhaps file some bugs so that the ebuilds can be fixed?

remi2402 · Post by **remi2402** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:36 pm

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 · Post by **rl03** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:40 pm

MmmmJoel wrote: I also ran across several webapp.eclass-specific differences in ebuilds. It's tough to tell which I should model from.

Improving developer documentation for webapp-config is very high on my TODO list. In the meantime, it'd be great if you could shoot me an email and describe those differences, and I'll try to clarify them for you.

MmmmJoel wrote: I tried once, and my question was the only activity in the channel for 3 days! I'll have to take another crack at it.

We're around, but Real Life sometime's a bitch

MmmmJoel wrote: Here was my first attempt if you want to take a quick look. I don't seem to be in the right working dir during the src_install.

I'll try to take a look after the holidays. If you could include the link in the email, that'd be great.

ludite · Post by **ludite** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 4:31 pm

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 · Post by **GoofballJM1** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:12 pm

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!

streaky · Post by **streaky** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 7:25 pm

We now support systems with both PHP4 and PHP5 installed at the same time - an important requirement, given upstream's lack of planning on this topic, and PHP5's lack of backwards-compatibility. We also support installing and upgrading extensions separately for each version of PHP.

If think you're misunderstanding your own argument - any PHP 4 code will run under PHP 5 - any that doesn't I'd argue it's a PHP bug. Any PHP developer knows that some PHP 5 syntax and functions wont work on PHP 4. I'm not saying you should do it right away, but you could easily argue the case for removing PHP 4 support, it's slower anyways, and people hanging onto PHP 4 for dear life causes people like me all kinds of problems

Other than that I love the way portage handles the LAMP stack, unmasking packages isn't a huge issue, and one day that will be gone, at that point installing will be smooth..

j-m · Post by **j-m** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:33 pm

streaky wrote: If think you're misunderstanding your own argument - any PHP 4 code will run under PHP 5 - any that doesn't I'd argue it's a PHP bug. Any PHP developer knows that some PHP 5 syntax and functions wont work on PHP 4. I'm not saying you should do it right away, but you could easily argue the case for removing PHP 4 support, it's slower anyways, and people hanging onto PHP 4 for dear life causes people like me all kinds of problems

I don't understand where are you directing, really. Anyway, we are not removing PHP 4 nor are planning to do that in a couple of months or so, that would cause tons of issues.

stuherbert · Post by **stuherbert** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:46 pm

streaky wrote:any PHP 4 code will run under PHP 5 - any that doesn't I'd argue it's a PHP bug.

I'm sorry, but you've been mis-informed on the topic. Object handling has changed in PHP5, and is not 100% backwards compatible. There are PHP4 extensions (DOMXML, Java, Sablotron to name three) that are not part of PHP5. Code written for PHP4 that uses these won't work in PHP5. That's not a PHP bug. It's just the price we pay for all the nice features in PHP5.

Best regards,
Stu

streaky · Post by **streaky** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:54 pm

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.

streaky · Post by **streaky** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 12:31 pm

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

/me shuts up

llongi · Post by **llongi** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:50 pm

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

/me shuts up

Not really all... Sablotron is not, Java neither (there is an alternative project now, php-java-bridge), and domxml is there, but is highly discouraged in it's use in favour of the PHP5 DOM XML extension, so there's no sobstitute for some things, same goes for PHP 5.1: some extensions will disappear and have no sobstitute, not in the core and not in PECL, it's the way (PHP-)life is.

streaky · Post by **streaky** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:06 pm

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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