After the last post, i decided NOT to have the sys-admin install anything other than Debian. It already has PHP5.2,MySQL,Apache/Apache2,BIND, and all other dependent packages installed. Followed the instructions again from scratch, litterally line by line incase i 'overlooked' something. Still there is a problem compiling the PHP5.2 binary. Is there anything i might have missed in the terminal output? anything that you might recommend i check? this is REALLY frustrating as i cant see what the 'problem' is.