Install PHP5 on Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus

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sysadmin/php5-ubuntu-zesty-1704.md
Jul 06, 2017
System Administration

(Theoretically) You can install both PHP5 and PHP7 and switch between them.. If you only want PHP5, add the repo, install the packages for PHP 5.6 and end it there.

WARNING:
  • This leads to PhpMyAdmin not working if you install it afterwards..
  • Both versions working has not been tested in production.
  • If you check PHP version on system, php --version, it still shows PHP 7.0

add repo

There are no PHP 5.x packages in Zesty repositories. Only in the PPA, so you need to add the repo

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update
NOTE: if you get 
  sudo: add-apt-repository: command not found
then install the software-properties-common package. For my Ubuntu version (Precise Pangolin, 12.04 LTS), I also had to install the python-software-properties package: 
  sudo apt-get install software-properties-common -y

install packages

# PHP 5.6
apt-get install php5.6 libapache2-mod-php5.6 php5.6-cli php5.6-common php5.6-curl php5.6-dev php5.6-gd php5.6-intl php5.6-mcrypt php5.6-mysql  php5.6-recode php5.6-xsl php5.6-pspell php5.6-ps php5.6-imagick php-pear -y

# PHP 7
apt-get install php7.0 libapache2-mod-php7.0 php7.0-cli php7.0-common php7.0-curl php7.0-dev php7.0-gd php7.0-intl php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-mysql php7.0-pspell php7.0-recode php7.0-xsl php-imagick php-pear -y

Switch PHP version ( Apache ):

from php5.6 to php7.0:

sudo a2dismod php5.6 ; sudo a2enmod php7.0 ; sudo service apache2 restart

from php7.0 to php5.6:

sudo a2dismod php7.0 ; sudo a2enmod php5.6 ; sudo service apache2 restart

enable modules

a2enmod rewrite
# phpenmod -v 5.6 mcrypt # PHP5
phpenmod -v 7.0 mcrypt # PHP7