I truely don't understand how control panels make life any easier.
I truely don't.
We have a customer with a dedicated server running Fedora Core 2 with Blech. Okay, fine. The customer wants to install a PHP script. Of course. The script requires a PHP function mhash():
However, you need to verify that the required PHP MHASH extension is available; otherwise, you will not be able to generate the required fingerprint.
The required MHASH extension comes with PHP and requires no additional cost.
Most web hosting providers install this extension along with PHP; however, in some circumstances, you may have to enable it yourself or ask your web host to enable it for you.
Lies! All lies!
It may very well come by default with PHP 4.3.10 but we're not running PHP 4.3.10 on this system, we're running PHP 4.3.4 and while the configure command (presented by phpinfo() is over 20 lines long, it doesn't contain --with-mhash.
There does, however, exist RPMs (RedHat Package Management) [1] I can install. The mhash-0.9.1-2.i386.rpm installed fine, but php-mhash-4.3.10-2.4.2.i386.rpm failed because it needs PHP 4.3.10 or higher and like I said, we're only running PHP 4.3.4.
And what the XXXX does version “4.3.10-2.4.2” even mean? It's like the Linux Kernel Version Numbering Mess [2], only worse.
It's even more incredible that RedHat failed to include this module with PHP; it has every other conceivable module configured.
Grrrrr.
I suppose we could upgrade to PHP 4.3.10, but would that break Blech?
Oh wait … just found out the latest version of Blech can support PHP 4.3.10, but we're not running the latest version of Blech, so we'll need to upgrade that …
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
So tell me, in what way do control panels make life easier?
XXXX, in what ways do RPM (RedHat Package Management)s (or any other pre-compiled form of installation) make life easier? It's not like ./configure ; make ; make install is all that difficult …
[1] http://phprpms.sourceforge.net/mhash
[2] http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/kt20050403_303.html#2