[FX.php List] Advice on Leopard, Apache 2, PHP w/ GD, Entropy and MAMP

[Troy Meyers]

We've just received a new duo-core Intel Mac Mini that came with Leopard and Apache 2.2 installed. The plan was to get this so that, without disturbing our existing Tiger Apache 1.3 / WPE machine, I could set up an SSL server and test it, so that I'd be able to swap it in when I was confident that all components, Apache SSL, PHP, and WPE were working as needed.

I had thought it would be easy because (supposedly) you just do a little Terminal work to turn on the SSL capability in Apache 2.2. This may be the case, but I've run into a roadblock even before getting that far.

On the existing PHP machine I've been using the Entropy installation, which I needed because we need the GD library.

On the new machine, I installed the FMS9A 9.0v3 "full" (since it's Leopard) with the "Multiple Machines" and "Worker" options. That appeared to go fine, though I never went as far as reconfiguring the deployment... not ready for that yet.

Then, I tried installing the Entropy PHP 5.2.4 package for Apache 2 (entropy-php-5.2.4-1-apache2.tar). It is listed for MacOS 10.4, but I thought since 10.5 wasn't mentioned anywhere it'd still be OK. This threw an error at the end of the installation. It killed Apache too.

I hit the old posts in forums, and it looks like this is a well known problem without a clear-cut solution, and that the Entropy guy (Marc Liyanage) isn't/doesn't have time to come out with a new version. It's been months. Lots of fixes have been posted, but it looks like none work well for the majority.

Some have suggested that abandoning Entropy PHP and moving to MAMP (http://www.mamp.info/en/mamp.html) as the solution. It sounds promising, but looking on that forum too shows that it hasn't been trouble-free. I'm not sure if I should take that plunge.

So, I have burning questions.

Is anyone using the WPE, Apache 2.2, and a PHP version with GD, (with or without SSL, I guess) on and Intel Mac Mini (or similar) under Leopard?

What other PHP options are there that include GD, that will work on this machine?

Will MAMP work with the WPE?

What order of install is best-- FMS, PHP, enable SSL?

I've wiped the new machine so that I can start over. If anyone can give me some advice I'd really appreciate it!

-Troy