Joomla! 1.6 requires PHP 5.3 or later to be installed. When requesting a new server, this is far less of a problem as many will be provisioned with PHP 5.3 already installed. What should you do, however, if you are running a version of CentOS prior to 5.6 you will need to manually update PHP before Joomla 1.6 will install.

In fact, even with Joomla 1.5 you may experience issues if you are running an earlier version of PHP. The latest build of Akeeba Backup, for example, requires PHP 5.3.

This post will detail the method you need to use to update from PHP 5.1 or 5.2 to PHP 5.3 (Note: These instructions should not be followed to update from PHP4 unless you know exactly what you are doing!)

Almost as soon as I wrote an article about the Joomla! migration to 1.6, 1.7 or 1.8, we have the first public release of Joomla! 1.7 made available for general use.

With the long anticipated release of 1.6 in January 2011 many people are confused about whether they should be migrating now, or waiting for the anticipated 1.7 release (July 2011) or even 1.8 (January 2012).

A long time ago I wrote an article explaining how to install an update/upgrade patch for your Joomla! installation, and while a lot of the information is still perfectly relevant today, I thought it was about time to write an update, given the wide range of technologies there are available now to not only keep your site up to date, but also advise you of any changes - potentially letting you know if something untoward is happening.