Wise to Wait on Installing Revolution on My Development Machine and HostMonster?

Two questions before diving into Revolution:

Q1. I’m trying to figure out if WAMPserver’s ability to quickly and conveniently switch components’ versions is worth the hassle of dealing with its current compatibility problems with Revolution. Should I switch to XAMPP?

The problems of Revolution with WAMPserver are addressed in several places in the MODx forums and the Revo documentation, such as:

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=44263.0

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=46580.0

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=44026.0

http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/revolution/Problems+with+WAMPServer+2.0i

I’m currently using WAMPserver 2.0i / Evo 1.0.4 with no problems on my development machine. Besides the WAMPserver / Revolution problem documented above, I also notice that the following PHP extensions called out as required for Revolution are not listed in WAMP 2.0i’s handy control panel:

* zlib
* JSON (or PECL library)
* SimpleXML

The WAMPserver change log at http://www.wampserver.com/en/changelog_en.txt says:

2.0-i -- 07/11/2009
now using 5.3.0
PECL packages are not included anymore (not available on the PHP website)
now using MySQL 5.1.36
now using phpMyAdmin 3.2.0.1
SQLiteManager is not included anymore, not compatible with PHP 5.3.0
minor bug corrected in the php.ini file
the PHP log file has been desactivated since it creates a bug with the phpinfo() function

Q2. Can HostMonster currently support Revolution? I was not able to get a simple "yes" or "no" via online chat with HostMonster support this morning.

HostMonster supports my production Evo 1.0.4 site with no problems.

At this moment, HostMonster’s Simple Scripts service lists Evo 1.0.4 but not Revolution. (Not that I’d use Simple Scripts, but presumably the appearance of a package means that HostMonster is able to support it.)

Digging deeper into the hosting account, I note:

MySQL version: 5.1.47-community-log
Client API version: 5.1.47
Apache version: 2.2.15
PHP version: 5.2.13

ZLib Support enabled
json version: 1.2.1
GD Version: bundled (2.0.34 compatible)
PDO drivers enabled: mysql, odbc, pgsql, sqlite, sqlite2
SimpleXML Revision: $Revision: 293036 $

User kenholm3 discussed Revolution with HostMonster specifically here:

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=47835.0

Backup existing data, and give it a shot?

Others have managed to get it working on Wampserver, so why wouldn’t you?

I’m thinking that Revolution is not a good thing for me to pursue until I can easily mirror my development and production installations. It’s currently a breeze to do that with Evo 1.0.4. Thought I would expose my research to benefit others mulling over the same question and maybe gain some insight from the community.

Those versions look fine to me. Just ensure PDO is installed and configured on the server, and you should be fine to run Revo.