Ben Ramsey

Build PHP 5.4 on CentOS 6.2

In case you haven’t heard the news, the PHP project released version 5.4.0 last Thursday. Naturally, I decided it was time to install and give it a try. I chose to install to a clean and bare-bones CentOS 6.2 virtual machine using VirtualBox. I did this for two reasons: 1) I wanted a clean environment for the build, and 2) I wanted to play with CentOS. At the time of this writing, there are not yet any official CentOS RPMs for PHP 5.4, so I had to build PHP from source. What follows are the notes I took during the installation and build process. I hope you find them helpful.

Revamping My Development Toolchain

It used to be that once a year I would take a good, hard look at the tools I used and endeavor to learn something new or change my workflow with those tools. However, I’ve been living the #startuplife for the past two years, so it’s been about three years since I last addressed my development toolchain. I decided to come up for air and take some time this weekend to rectify that by addressing five main areas: my terminal emulator, my shell, my terminal multiplexer, my IRC client, and my color scheme—yes, even my color scheme! In addition, I decided to push out my updated Octopress-powered blog, even though things are still a little rough around the edges.

A Different Kind of Conference: The PHP Community Conference

For those who have been following along, you’ll know that I helped organize a mini-conference for PHP, along with Elizabeth Naramore, in the Fall of 2006. It was little more than an excuse for a small group of people to get together, kamp, talk shop, and have fun—and it was a lot of fun. It was so much fun, in fact, that Elizabeth and Keith organized it again in 2008. That was PHP Appalachia. It was the stuff of legends.