upgrade php on Redhat 7.2?!?!

[FiveFlat]

I have RedHat 7.2 and it came packaged with php and mysql. The problem is I cannot upgrade and I DO NOT want to use rpms. ( I feel I won't learn anything that way).
I managed to get mysql 4.0.3 working at the command prompt but my phpinfo says it's configured --without-mysql. (php 4.0.6)

How do go about upgrading to the php-4.2.3 that I have?

It seems these damn rpms just load things and don't teach me crap!

Thanks in advance!

[LordShryku]

Unload the php rpm, download the tarball from php.net or zend.com. There's some tutorials there on how to compile it and get everything going

[FiveFlat]

I removed the apache rpm, php rpm, and mysql rpm.
Then I installed all three manually and they seem to work okay! That was a good lesson for me! That part is resolved.
No I have a new problem -
my index.php loads fine it even processes the mysql queries in it. However, I have some code that links to a query for instance:
<a href=$PHP_SELF?pedigree=$reg_num>
if ($pedigree) {
....
}

The address bar shows the correct address (http://localhost/index.php?pedigree=333756), but the new page doesn't. It just blinks once and shows what it always has - index.php

any idea whats going on here?

[LordShryku]

That's probably your code then. I'm guessing you had register_globals on, and now they're off.

[FiveFlat]

Heh, I had changed register_globals to 'ON' but for some reason it wasn't looking at my php.ini. I deleted it, re copied php.ini-dist and restarted apache. All is well now!
Thanks!