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Colin O'Dell:
How To Install PHP 7.3
Dec 13, 2018 @ 19:51:28

Following the recent release of PHP 7.3, Colin O'Dell has put together a guide for those wanting to install it, walking you through the setup for several popular operating systems.

PHP 7.3 has been released, bringing some great new features to the language such as trailing commas in function calls, throwing errors when JSON parsing fails, array_key_first() / array_key_last() functions, and much more!

In the post he includes instructions for:

  • Ubuntu
  • Debian
  • CentOS / RHEL & Fedora
  • Mac OS X
  • Windows

He even includes instructions for two other tool-based installations: phpbrew and Docker.

tagged: install php73 tutorial linux windows osx phpbrew docker

Link: https://www.colinodell.com/blog/201812/how-install-php-73

Zend Framework Blog:
PHP and SQL Server for Linux
Feb 15, 2017 @ 17:21:52

The Zend Framework blog has a new post from Enrico Zimuel talking about the use of SQL Server for Linux from inside a PHP-based application. This makes use of the preview release of SQL Server for Linux directly from Microsoft.

This week we tested the public preview of Microsoft SQL Server for Linux using PHP 7 with our component zendframework/zend-db.

Microsoft announced the availability of a public preview of SQL Server for Linux on the 16th of November, 2016. [...] Moreover, the performance of the new DBMS seems to be very impressive. Microsoft published a case study with 1.2 million requests per second with In-Memory OLTP on a single commodity server.

The tutorial shows you how to get the SQL Server software installed on a Ubuntu-based system and install it via apt-get. They also show how to install the command line tool for SQL Server and get the msodbcsql driver needed to make the connection. Finally they show how to set up the driver with PHP 7 (via PDO) and running the Zend/Db integration tests using a Vagrant-created and configured VM instance.

tagged: sqlserver linux tutorial php7 install configure vagrant microsoft

Link: https://framework.zend.com/blog/2017-02-14-php-sql-server-linux.html

Colin O'Dell:
Installing PHP 7.1 December 2nd, 2016
Dec 08, 2016 @ 16:54:42

With the recent release of PHP 7.1 you might be asking how you can quickly and easily update your current installation, regardless of the platform. Thankfully Colin O'Dell is here to help with this guide to upgrading to v7.1 on multiple Linux distributions, OSX and Windows.

PHP 7.1 has been released, bringing some great new features and enhancements to the language such as nullable types, the iterable pseudo-type, catching multiple exceptions, and much more.

Here's a brief guide on how to install PHP 7.1 on several different operating systems.

He includes instructions for Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS/RHEL, Mac OS 10.6+ and Windows. Complete commands and links to the downloads are also provided. You have no excuse now not to upgrade - get downloading!

tagged: install php71 multiple platform tutorial linux osx windows

Link: https://www.colinodell.com/blog/2016-12/installing-php-7-1

Symfony Finland:
PHP development with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
Aug 08, 2016 @ 14:48:19

On the Symfony Finland site there's a new article posted talking about the use of the Windows subsystem for Linux, an environment that allows for the execution of Linux binaries in a Windows environment.

Windows has always been somewhat of an oddball when it comes to PHP development. In the past years it has lost out on developer mindshare to UNIX-like Operating Systems like Linux and macOS.

With the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update in August 2016 Microsoft now offers an interesting option for PHP development in the Windows environment: The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The Windows Subsystem for Linux allows the execution of Linux binaries in Windows 10. The feature is not enabled by default and is targeted for developers.

They show you how to get into the Linux-compatible shell on your Windows system after enabling it in your System Settings. From there, he says, it's basically like working in a Linux-based server and includes some of the actions he took (including installing PHP 7, Symfony and Composer). He also shows the integration the environment has back with the Windows system including access to local drives (but that there's still some tricky bits involved in using them).

tagged: development windows subsystem linux commandline install symfony environment

Link: https://www.symfony.fi/entry/php-development-with-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl

That Podcast:
Episode 30: ...
Apr 25, 2016 @ 14:47:48

That Podcas, hosted by PHP community members Beau Simensen and Dave Marshall, has posted their latest episode - Episode #30: ....

Beau and Dave talk about Beau's recent trip to Cornwall, some family stuff like schools, Linux binaries on windows, parallelshell woes, cloud formation woes and FounderDating.com.

Other topics mentioned in this episode include:

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3 directly for listening at your leisure. If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe to their feed too.

tagged: thatpodcast ep30 cornwall school linux binary parallelshell cloudformation podcast

Link: https://thatpodcast.io/episodes/episode-30

Microsoft.com:
Announcing SQL Server on Linux
Mar 08, 2016 @ 16:20:24

It's not specific to the world of PHP but there was a major announcement from Microsoft yesterday about one of their products, SQL Server, and how they're officially brining it to Linux.

Today I’m excited to announce our plans to bring SQL Server to Linux as well. This will enable SQL Server to deliver a consistent data platform across Windows Server and Linux, as well as on-premises and cloud. We are bringing the core relational database capabilities to preview today, and are targeting availability in mid-2017.

[...] Bringing SQL Server to Linux is another way we are making our products and new innovations more accessible to a broader set of users and meeting them where they are.

Currently the release is in a private preview stage but more information on the release and how you can get it to install on your systems will be released in the coming months. You can sign up for updates and get more information about the product on the project website on Microsoft.com.

tagged: sqlserver linux release announcement microsoft

Link: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/03/07/announcing-sql-server-on-linux/

Larry Garfield:
Composer vs. Linux Distributions: A Mental Model Battle
Feb 25, 2016 @ 17:41:11

In his latest post Larry Garfield talks about the Composer problem that was recently brought up by the Gentoo linux project and is related to how Composer packages and system-level shared libraries differ.

This is not a new complaint; Other distributions have complained about Composer's impact before. But fundamentally I think the issue stems from having the wrong mental model of how modern PHP works when viewed from a distribution or sysadmin perspective.

In a recent heated GitHub thread, several people referred to PHP "linking" to 3rd party libraries, as if they were shared C libraries. That is simply not the case. Neither "static linking" nor "dynamic linking" really applies to PHP. From a sysadmin perspective, PHP is closer to highly complicated bash scripts than anything else.

Larry starts with a bit of history on the subject, pointing out the two methods most developers used PHP code: copy/pasted from the web or installed via PEAR. He talks about the common issues with both approaches. He then talks about how modern PHP development and Composer related and how, from a sysadmin perspective, Composer is the "compile" step of PHP and only supports static links. He also makes some suggestions to the distribution packagers around how to handle these system-level Composer dependencies (and how to treat it like a "binary" if needed).

The mistake here is trying to treat dependent packages of modern PHP applications like shared libraries. They're not. The community has spoken, and PHP simply doesn't work that way anymore. Fighting that is a losing battle. But by viewing composer as a compiler, distributions can still slot PHP into their typical workflows and get all of the security update ease that they're looking for.
tagged: composer linux distribution mental model shared library system dependency gentoo

Link: http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/composer-distribution-mental-model

Softpedia.com:
Debian Is Moving to PHP 7, and So Are Numerous Other Linux Distributions
Jan 18, 2016 @ 16:48:36

According to this new article on the Softpedia site, Debian and several other major Linux distributions will soon be making the move up to PHP 7 for their releases, the latest major version of the PHP language.

The Debian developers have publicly announced their plans to migrate all of the PHP 5 to the brand new and powerful PHP 7 release, as well as to change the PHP packaging to allow co-installable versions.

The announcement was made by Debian developer Ond?ej Surý a few couple of days ago on one of Debian Project's mailing lists, where he informs Debian devs about the changes made to the PHP packaging for the operating system, in the pkg-php packaging group.

In fact, PHP 7 has already made it to the unstable releases of the Debian linux distribution for those that would like to test things out. You can find out more of the specifics in this mailing list post on their implementation plans.

tagged: debian php7 migration mailinglist linux unstable

Link: http://news.softpedia.com/news/debian-is-moving-to-php-7-and-so-are-numerous-other-linux-distributions-498951.shtml

Jack Skinner:
PHP Version Roundup - PHP Install Statistics for 2015
Dec 09, 2015 @ 16:43:49

Jack Skinner has posted his latest "roundup" results of the most popularly installed versions of PHP across the web. In the post he looks through the percentage of installations for each version and how many are "secure" (currently supported and in a popular/stable linux distribution).

Last year, Anthony Ferrara posted an excellent round up of PHP versions in the wild, specifically focusing on the volume of un-patched versions running production websites. Even as an estimate it was an eyeopening moment for many people.

Using data from w3techs and, while the raw data isn't posted, what's there is good enough for an estimation. He talks some about the definition of "secure" in the context of the results and lists the current versions of several popular linux distributions and the versions they support. His results are then grouped by minor release and created some graphs for the results to help with visualization. The remainder of the post shares these results for PHP versions 5.6, 5.5, 5.4, 5.3 and yes even 5.2/5.1. The results end with overall numbers/graphs of the most widely installed versions and what percentage of those are considered "secure". With PHP 7 just released the results are a little discouraging but it is good to see things trending the right way since last year's results.

tagged: version roundup install popular language secure linux supported w3techs

Link: https://developerjack.com/blog/2015/12/09/php-version-roundup/

ServerGrove Blog:
Useful Linux command-line tools to work with PHP projects
Apr 24, 2015 @ 16:16:20

The ServerGrove blog has posted a new tutorial with a selection of useful command line tools to help you in working with your PHP applications. None of them are PHP specific but are Unix-based commands that can help in every day development.

Linux provides a lot of interesting command-line tools that we can use when working with PHP projects. In this post we give you some useful commands.

They include examples of commands that can help with:

  • Find all PHP files in the current directory
  • Check the syntax of all PHP files in the current directory
  • Get the size of each Composer dependency
  • Find suspicious PHP files
  • Find files with abstract classes
  • List PHP settings for the xdebug extension
  • Find empty files and/or directories
  • List files currently open by a PHP process

As mentioned, most of the tools themselves are not PHP specific but these example commands do relate to things that are more in a PHP context.

tagged: useful linux commandline tool context example list

Link: http://blog.servergrove.com/2015/04/23/useful-linux-command-line-tools-work-php-projects/


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