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ppa:ondrej/php5-oldstable does not support PHP 5.4 for Ubuntu 13.10 and higher. There seems to be no official or a stable way to install PHP 5.4 instead of 5.5 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS currently. I've seen most answers on StackOverflow/Exchange but in the end, they are mostly all outdated.
How can I install PHP 5.4 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS directly from a repository?
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get build-dep php5
apt-get install -y php5 php5-dev php-pear autoconf automake curl build-essential libxslt1-dev re2c libxml2 libxml2-dev php5-cli bison libbz2-dev libreadline-dev
apt-get install -y libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev libpng12-0 libpng12-dev libjpeg-dev libjpeg8-dev libjpeg8 libgd-dev libgd3 libxpm4 libltdl7 libltdl-dev
apt-get install -y libssl-dev openssl
apt-get install -y gettext libgettextpo-dev libgettextpo0
apt-get install -y php5-cli
apt-get install -y libmcrypt-dev
apt-get install libicu-dev
curl -L -O https://github.com/phpbrew/phpbrew/raw/master/phpbrew
chmod +x phpbrew
sudo mv phpbrew /usr/bin/phpbrew
phpbrew init
phpbrew known --update
phpbrew update
Here we choose PHP 5.4.34, but you can change this to any version that is available as listed by the above commands - like 5.5.22.
phpbrew install 5.4.34 +default
~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc (basically the shell you're using, default to .bashrc)source ~/.phpbrew/bashrc
Close your terminal to take effect, and restart it.
phpbrew switch php-5.4.34
If it shows Invalid Argument, try phpbrew switch 5.4.34 instead.
php -v
phpbrew install -j N 5.4.34 +default where N is the max number of CPU cores for compiling. That way your hugely wide multi-core system is put to more use and finishes faster.
phpbrew switch php-5.4.34 should do the trick if the previous steps were ok.
Mar 9, 2015 at 23:38
phpbrew switch php-5.4.38 (current version I compiled), restarted apache2 and php5-fpm, and checked the output of phpinfo() in my web server. Just running php -v works fine, but the web server still says "PHP Version 5.5.9-1ubuntu4.6". I assume I still have to update some system config file for php5-fpm.
source ~/.phpbrew/bashrc to the end of ~/.bashrc, otherwise it would not switch
If it shows Invalid Argument, try over and over again nothing, the only thing that help is these two line and in this order:
source ~/.phpbrew/bashrc && phpbrew list
phpbrew switch 5.4.45
Make sure phpbrew is located in:
/usr/local/bin
not
/usr/bin
Apache+fcgid+php5.4- I do not have anything installed yet and do not need fcgid.