Thanks. But I greatly appreciate the help which you and the others have given me. While the problem wasn't fixed, I learned a sh*t-ton!

Maybe you'd be able to answer my other question? The thread is below this one. "Upgrading PHP Via SSH"

I noticed from the how to links you posted, that it looks like you were trying to upgrade or change to a version of PHP that isn't the standard one for your distribution. While this can be beneficial in providing a updated features and things, my experience from the times I attempted it is that more often than not, it causes problems. I think what happens is that you run into dependency issues with other libraries, the compiler tool chain, or even the kernel itself. While using testing repositories can help reduce these effects versus compiling from source, it doesn't entirely eliminate them.

Looking back at your original post, you mention that "something went wrong" and this suggests that your aren't entirely sure what. I thought I would mention the above, as a general caution, to be careful about where you pull source from because it can break things, especially if you wind up with a mixed bag.

(edit) From what I can tell, the one how to, upgrading via ssh, had you ssh in as a normal user and then su - to root, which is the correct process; as opposed to direct login via root. From there is had you run the yum commands for working with the package manager. The package manager should have both a command line and a GUI interface and you can use either as you desire. The major requirement is that you run it as root because it is definitely a privileged operation. Is there something in particular about the process that gave you trouble or that you have questions with (that I didn't see in your other posts)?

In SSH, I didn't run su or sudo or anything. I logged in as root.

No questions. I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade MySQL at the same time as PHP, so I upgraded MySQL. Then I just compiled the PHP source and upgraded that way.

Rather than belabor the point here, there are several threads on this topic that you might want to read.

Most distributions tend to have a unique layout for their applications that is invariably different than the default. For example, binary files go in /bin rather than /usr/bin, the Apache user is www-data instead of httpd, etc. When you compile from source, you need to run the config option using all of the flags required for your distribution. This would also be where the dependent libraries are specified along with location. Sometimes this is difficult, sometimes it is easy. Personally, this is one of my favorite aspects of Slackware, in that it provides the Slackbuilds for most packages.

After the installation, you would need to watch the make-install script carefully as this is the part that copies the compiled application to the /bin and /lib directories as well as a few other tasks. Sometimes the application is pointed to by a link so that you can change versions by changing the link. GCC is a good example of this. In my system it is currently linked to gcc-4.5.2 but I could install multiple compilers and libraries and change the links accordingly. You might also need to remove the original PHP to prevent conflicts before installing the new one.

One disadvantage to compiling by source is that you a lot of times introduce a breakage in the package management system as it is no longer aware of the proper application. If it still thinks you have the older version, this can really create double trouble because it will may try to upgrade on top of your efforts.

In any case, I mention this stuff not with the intent to lecture, but to try and explain some of the underlying how and why details of where I think you ran into trouble. As you said, you have learned a lot from the experience. One generally learns from what goes wrong, not what goes right.

Sorry for the reply delay. Thank you for the information! I'll keep it in mind next time. I am interested in making my own server and I'll come back to your reply.