Redhad Fedora

I finally tried to implement my own linux box and experienced difficulty connecting to mysql from PHP applications. I struggled with the issue for a while, then began researching if other people were having similar problems. I am writing this list because the difficulty I am experiencing reminds me of tactics employed by IBM and Microsoft to maintain their hold on their customers, or so it appears to me. The version of linux I tried to implement from CD's which accompanied a rather large book on Linux Fedora Core 2. It seems that the apache server that came with the Redhat Fedora version, came with php implemented as an apache module (mod_php). Running php_info() disclosed that php had been compiled with "--with-mysql=shared,/usr" yet attempting to access mysql results in "cannot load mysql extension, please check PHP Configuration" after installing phpMyAdmin, even though services report "mysqld (pid 2890) is running...". So I then found that there was an option to install "php_mysql", but when attempting to install the application I get "Unlocatable package "php", required by ('php-mbstring','4.3.10','2.4')". My point in all this is this seems to be the only difficulty I had with the install, and with my paranoia working overtime, I began to notice that; 1. PHP was carried in the product as a Web server add-on only and not a development language. 2. The php interface module seemed to be missing even though the php_info seemed to think it was pre-configured (the binaries certainly didn't execute as if it were installed). 3. there seemed to be much confusion about which modules were included and which weren't (probably caused by my lack of experience). Red Hat recently split development between the open source version (Fedora) and the version that it was selling (Enterprise), and my paranoia suggests that to break the most commonly used DB in its install of PHP would encourage more than one site to consider shelling out cash for the Enterprise edition (where I assume these problems don't exist), suggesting that if the break was not intentional, it was at least fortuitous (the kind of thing that the other big boys have all done to boost their own sales, or so they deny). My concern is that PHP will suffer in credibility as a result of this. Does this list become involved in this kind of thing? Just curious. Warren Vail