Install latest version of php 8.5 PHP switcher in CWP- Control web panel - EL8/9 AlmaLinux 8/9

This is a tutorial for PHP 8.5 installation in CWP PHP Switcher

I've switched to direct compiler environment variables that pass flags straight to gcc, g++, and ld - eliminating pkg-config dependency that was failing across servers.

Old Method (Unstable):

pkg-config → generates flags → gcc/g++/ld
↓
Breaks when pkg-config .pc files missing/corrupted/version mismatch

New Method (Stable):

CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS/LDFLAGS → gcc/g++/ld directly
↓
No pkg-config intermediary = consistent builds everywhere

Install dependencies :

# For el9 only : 
dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb

# run these for el8 and el9
dnf groupinstall "Development Tools"
dnf install glibc-devel elfutils-libelf-devel
dnf install git make gcc gcc-c++ binutils glibc-devel autoconf libtool bison re2c automake libxml2-devel openssl-devel sqlite-devel bzip2-devel libcurl-devel libpng-devel libavif-devel libwebp-devel libjpeg-devel libXpm-devel freetype-devel gmp-devel libicu-devel openldap-devel oniguruma-devel libargon2-devel libtidy-devel libxslt-devel 

Build PHP 8.5 switcher :

rm -rf /usr/local/php-85
mkdir -p /usr/local/php-85
cd /usr/local/php-85
wget http://php.net/distributions/php-8.5.0.tar.gz
tar zxvf php-8.5.0.tar.gz
cd php-8.5.0
./configure --with-config-file-path=/usr/local/php --enable-cgi --with-config-file-scan-dir=/usr/local/php/php.d --with-zlib=/usr --enable-mbstring --with-zip --enable-bcmath --enable-pcntl --enable-ftp --enable-exif --enable-calendar --enable-sysvmsg --enable-sysvsem --enable-sysvshm --with-tidy --with-curl --with-iconv --with-gmp --enable-gd --with-avif --with-jpeg --with-freetype --enable-gd-jis-conv --with-webp --with-xpm --with-openssl --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd --with-gettext=/usr --with-bz2=/usr --with-mysqli --enable-soap --enable-phar --with-xsl --enable-posix --enable-sockets --with-external-pcre --with-libdir=lib64 --with-mysql-sock=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock --enable-intl --with-password-argon2 --enable-litespeed --with-ldap=/usr --with-ldap-sasl=/usr 
export CFLAGS="-O2 -fPIE -DPIC"
export CXXFLAGS="-O2 -fPIE -DPIC"
export LDFLAGS="-pie -Wl,--as-needed"
make -j$(nproc)
make install

After that, PHP 8.5 will be installed. You can check via the php -v command :

[root@alma]# php -v
PHP 8.5.0 (cli) (built: Dec  3 2025 01:59:52) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.5.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.5.0, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies