This week's yak shaving. A request for a new wordpress installation. Word...

Julian Bond - 2011-07-08 15:51:30+0000 - Updated: 2011-07-08 15:51:30+0000

This week's yak shaving. A request for a new wordpress installation. Wordpress 3.3 needs php 5.3 which leads to endless research trying to track down how to do this when the main Centos release is 5.16. Having found php53 in yum, have to uninstall php5.16 and then install 53 I then need tidy and mailparse to go with that in Centos, dealing with browscap.ini failures, updating passwords on mysql, rebuilding eaccelerator, re-installing squirrelmail because it got trashed accidentally, dealing with centos yum naming conventions on 4 live linux servers and then on a personal windows machine, which then meant locating windows modules, installing VC9 runtime, finding vc9 builds of all of the above because they're not on the main apache and php sites, updating the local Apache and PHP files to VC9 versions. To finally install wordpress locally, and then on the servers. With the new domain needing registering, DNS setup, Apache vhosts and postfix config files modifying. And on, and on.

A sysadmin's job is never done. And it's not even the main part of my job so I'm really an amateur at this stuff. I have huge respect for the people who do this exclusively for a living. It's a constant battle against upgrades, updates and a multiplicity of software that is broken in not very interesting ways.

46 Trinity Rd, Ware, Hertfordshire SG12 7

Joby Elliott - 2011-07-08 16:32:10+0000

"a multiplicity of software that is broken in not very interesting ways"
That. That's what I hate about doing computer related tasks for anyone but myself.

Rob Gordon - 2011-07-08 17:37:24+0000

oh I was so pissed. I just got finished installing the previous version when I got this notice. I know it is not a difficult install - usually, but what a pain. Thanks for the heads up about this. If I were you, I just wouldn't bother - the older versions of WP are just fine.

Joby Elliott - 2011-07-08 17:51:01+0000

At the risk of sounding fanboyish, I'd also suggest ditching WP for Drupal. The learning curve is steeper, but once you get the hang of configuring it you can wrangle it into doing anything you can dream of.

I converted my own site from WP to Drupal about 4 years ago and I've never looked back.

It's also nice that theming Drupal is very sane. I dunno if they've worked it out at all since, but I remember WP theming being something of a black art.

Thomas Power - 2011-07-08 21:06:11+0000

at last where you been?

Julian Bond - 2011-07-08 21:13:51+0000

@John Elliott Been using Drupal since V3. In fact I wrote the very first blog module! Drupal has some problems with PHP5.3 but at least it doesn't require it. I lost track of what they did with it round about V5 and am a bit lost in the environment now.

If you use Centos/Redhat converting to php 5.3 is not trivial. Especially if you have any PECL or .so extensions. It's possible but awkward. Way too many places where you can get caught out.

Julian Bond - 2017-10-03 08:57:52+0000

Gosh. Has it been 6 years?