Helgi has posted about an update to the next alpha release of PEAR to remove support for certain versions of PHP:

For the next alpha release of PEAR that will happen in 2 - 4 weeks we'll have a min dep of PHP 4.4 and 5.1.6, so basically excluding 5.0.0 - 5.1.5 Now why am I going to do that?

This pushes more people up from the PHP 4.3.x series (to the 4.4.x that was the last PHP4 release) and up to a more recent PHP5 version for the future. Eventually, PHP4 support will be dropped all together, but for now there's a bit of a hold out.

Jacques Marneweck has a quick reminder for those trying to get the latest PEAR installer - you can always get it from CVS.

Quick note that the PEAR installer is missing (go-pear.org has expired and has been snapped up by some cybersquatters) and http://pear.php.net/go-pear renders a 404. So the current solution is to grab the go-pear install from CVS.

A quick curl call to a url on the cvs.php.net site (in the /pearweb directory) is all it takes to grab the latest. The page it's pulling is the source for the go-pear.php installer that can be run either from a web browser or from the command line (with a PHP binary).

The PHP group has made a two quick updates to the recent release of PHP 5.2.6 for the Windows users out there:

The Windows installers and archives were missing the XSL and IMAP extensions.

These updated packages can be downloaded from the Downloads page on PHP.net as usual (with each updated package having a note indicating the change).

Alex Netkachov has posted about the update he's just released to the Jamp! package.

I've updated the Jamp! All packages are updated to the latests stable version available, the "Server" and "Service" commands are added for Tomcat 6.0, Jamp.hta UI is updated

Jamp! is a single-click installer for PHP/Java/Apache/MySQL to make installing them (and getting them working together) simple.

John Mertic quickly notes that the Windows installer for the latest PHP release (5.2.5) is now working correctly:

Thanks to a missed CVS commit, Bug # 43230 came up b0rking the installer last week. I rebuilt it and updated it at http://www.php.net/downloads.php (with big thanks to Derick Rethans for the karma and help finding my way to get it updated).

You can download both these new Windows packages and the current source code builds from the PHP.net downloads section.

Travis Swicegood is teasing us with some output from a script in his latest blog post:

So my free time of late (what there is of it) has been spent on a project that's getting really close to v0.1 release. In other words, its first functional release. If you've ever run a test using the PEAR installer or know what a .phpt file looks like, you might be able to guess what I've been up.

Keep an eye on his blog for more information on his "secret project".

Alex Netkachov as a (very) quick note posted today involving the update to IIS' FastCGI and Jamp!:

Go Live FastCGI for IIS release was announced and I've added is to Jamp!. PHP.IIS command now can install PHP on IIS over FastCGI or over ISAPI filter.

Jamp! is an easy installer for a Java, Apache, MySQL and PHP setup. It makes it a simple, one-click operation to get it up and running. Get more information about the installation and downloads from this post.

Greg Beaver talks about a big push that he's making towards PEAR2 by working hard on an integral piece of the puzzle - the Pyrus installer.

I'm churning out code to turn its installer, Pyrus, from vaporware into actual code. Along these lines, there has been significant progress. The code has been developed on PHP 5.2, but will most likely target PHP 5.3 with the introduction of namespaces. Pyrus completely revamps the way things are done.

Greg mentions some of the functionality the installer will use including XMLReader/XMLWriter, namespaces and bits of functionality from the Standard PHP Library (SPL). He's released what he's developed so far via a PEAR channel with no other dependencies.

In a new blog entry Alexander Netkachev points out a new unattended installer for getting Java/Apache/PHP and MySQL set up correctly on your system named (appropriately) Jamp!.

Counting times I have installed Java, Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc, changed configuration, setup additional modules and so on, I decided to summarize my knowledge in this area and help myself and others to save our time. I created the installer, which primary goal is to provide the developer with command-line tools for basic Apache/PHP/MySQL management tasks. The second reincarnation of this tool-set was in a form of several JScript script files.

His installer is simple to get up and running - it downloads the latest packages for the setup (the JAMP part) and runs the process automatically. There's also functionality to install additional packages like the Zend Framework or the Dojo Toolkit.

Click here to download the installer.

According to a new post on John Mertic's blog the PHP Windows installer is celebrating its one year anniversary (as of July 24th, 2007).

I am always looking for any suggestions for improvements to the installer. I'm also curious how people are using it; is it just for personal development, or is there anyone using it to deploy to a group of desktops or servers?

According to the original message on the php.internals list, John based it off of the functionality of the installer of Phil Driscoll with extra features like selective installation of components, automatic configuration of the php.ini and that it's made as a MSI file (scriptable and open source).