4 ms·

Very fair point :) All my other dependencies, using 5 year old versions is fine; it’s mostly just PHP that gets an order of magnitude less-painful to work with

Very fair point :) All my other dependencies, using 5 year old versions is fine; it’s mostly just PHP that gets an order of magnitude less-painful to work with in each release, so being stuck a few versions behind is extra frustrating...

slim 5y ago
That's because php decided it needs 6 month release cycles now. You're better off targeting php 7.4 for the next 3 years imho
- jorams 5y ago
  PHP releases once a year. They've been doing that for almost a decade now.
CogitoCogito 5y ago
Is it that difficult to build and/or install a newer version that better fits your needs? I tend to stick to debian stable, but in the few cases where I need newer software I just build it myself. Using `apt build-dep [package]` and then something along the lines of `configure && make && make install` basically always works. edit: I guess if you work somewhere with a policy of requiring you to use system packages, you're a little screwed, but that seems more of an organizational problem than a debian problem.
- dreyfan 5y ago
  PHP 8.x is very easy to install on debian by adding deb.sury.org to apt sources. https://deb.sury.org/ https://deb.sury.org/
- Shish2k 5y ago
  In this case I’m building software whose primary selling point is “trivial to install on practically any cheap-ass $1/mo shared web host, just unzip and FTP the files to your website folder” - which is the whole reason it’s written in PHP in the first place. (The more I think about it, the more sad I am that it’s 2021 and still no other language has come close to PHP’s low barrier to entry...)
- curryst 5y ago
  Yes. Just as an example, I use VSCode. VSCode no longer works on CentOS 7. It needs a newer glibc, so I'm going to have to recompile a lot of stuff and do some PATH fiddling to get it to work. It's usually not that it's hard to do that for your packages. It's when their dependencies go out of date and I'm looking at having to build a Frankenstein system where I'm running one up to date system on top of a really out of date one, and trying to make the two co-exist in a single OS. It's not insurmountable, but it's enough effort that dealing with occasional Arch breakage becomes easier. Or even something in between like Ubuntu.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    Well I was referring specifically to debian and to PHP. Does VSCode really not compile on debian 10 or 11? I find that a little surprising. But yeah I agree that installing newer dependencies like glibc for VSCode would certainly be a hassle. I can't really speak much to that though since I've never used it.
    - int_19h 5y ago
      VSCode is probably not the best example, because it has official packages for Debian (among many other things): https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux

slim 5y ago

That's because php decided it needs 6 month release cycles now. You're better off targeting php 7.4 for the next 3 years imho

jorams 5y ago
PHP releases once a year. They've been doing that for almost a decade now.

CogitoCogito 5y ago

Is it that difficult to build and/or install a newer version that better fits your needs? I tend to stick to debian stable, but in the few cases where I need newer software I just build it myself. Using `apt build-dep [package]` and then something along the lines of `configure && make && make install` basically always works. edit: I guess if you work somewhere with a policy of requiring you to use system packages, you're a little screwed, but that seems more of an organizational problem than a debian problem.

dreyfan 5y ago
PHP 8.x is very easy to install on debian by adding deb.sury.org to apt sources. https://deb.sury.org/ https://deb.sury.org/
Shish2k 5y ago
In this case I’m building software whose primary selling point is “trivial to install on practically any cheap-ass $1/mo shared web host, just unzip and FTP the files to your website folder” - which is the whole reason it’s written in PHP in the first place. (The more I think about it, the more sad I am that it’s 2021 and still no other language has come close to PHP’s low barrier to entry...)
curryst 5y ago
Yes. Just as an example, I use VSCode. VSCode no longer works on CentOS 7. It needs a newer glibc, so I'm going to have to recompile a lot of stuff and do some PATH fiddling to get it to work. It's usually not that it's hard to do that for your packages. It's when their dependencies go out of date and I'm looking at having to build a Frankenstein system where I'm running one up to date system on top of a really out of date one, and trying to make the two co-exist in a single OS. It's not insurmountable, but it's enough effort that dealing with occasional Arch breakage becomes easier. Or even something in between like Ubuntu.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  Well I was referring specifically to debian and to PHP. Does VSCode really not compile on debian 10 or 11? I find that a little surprising. But yeah I agree that installing newer dependencies like glibc for VSCode would certainly be a hassle. I can't really speak much to that though since I've never used it.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    VSCode is probably not the best example, because it has official packages for Debian (among many other things): https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux