EasyApache includes a pre-release version of eAccelerator??

[Reado]

Is there any reason why EasyApache includes a pre-release version of eAccelerator?

It's labelled as a Release Candidate, which I'm never likely to run in my production environment, but it now seems whenever I rebuild Apache it'll be included anyway.

The eAccelerator website lists it in their "releases" section, but they also list betas too - you wouldn't include a beta in EA would you? What makes the RC any different to the beta version?

The website also clearly states "eAccelerator is still under development. The latest release, 0.9.5.3, supports PHP 4 and all PHP 5 releases including 5.2. In older releases, the encoder will only work with PHP versions from the 4.x.x branch. eAccelerator will not work with any other versions of PHP". It seems version 0.9.5.3 is still the recognised latest version.

[cPanelDon]

Ensuring proper support for the latest stable PHP release, version 5.3.x, required using the new eAccelerator version 0.9.6 that is a Release Candidate; however, because the new version requires at minimum PHP v5.1 and has dropped support for the legacy PHP version 4 it was necessary to still use the older eAccelerator version 0.9.5.3 for legacy installations of PHP (e.g., v4.4.x).

It is still possible to manually install a preferred (older) version of PHP extensions, including eAccelerator. I recommend the following documentation from the official eAccelerator web site for assistance with installing a specific version from source and configuring desired options:
InstallFromSource - eAccelerator - Trac
Settings - eAccelerator - Trac

[Reado]

I shouldn't have to do this though - the whole point of EasyApache is that it makes it easier to manage Apache and PHP installations and updates. It doesn't make sense that EA now includes a non-production version to support something that EA doesn't actually include (PHP 5.3).

Surely it would be far easier to add an option for eAccelerator 0.9.5.3 and 0.9.6-RC1 (depending on which PHP version has been selected)?

[cPanelDon]

Surely it would be far easier to add an option for eAccelerator 0.9.5.3 and 0.9.6-RC1 (depending on which PHP version has been selected)?

The option to enable or disable eAccelerator is in the EasyApache menu when configuring the build options, and to note, it is not active by default; in addition, eAccelerator may be installed or uninstalled using the command-line script noted below:

# /scripts/phpextensionmgr

The script for determining which eAccelerator version to use based on the PHP version is put in-place upon using the provided tools to trigger an install of eAccelerator or when checking its install status; for reference, this file is located at the following path:

/home/cpeasyapache/phpextensions/eaccelerator/cpanel-install