First make sure you have the Debian package development tools:

apt-get install build-essential debhelper

(More tools might be needed depending on what you already have installed, but you will tend to get warnings about what is missing)

Then, download the PHP sources:

apt-get source php5

(The current version in the Ubuntu repositories at this time is php5-5.1.2, so adjust for version numbers in the future.)

And you will need all the dependencies for building PHP:

apt-get build-dep php5

Change into the debian build directory for PHP:

cd php5-5.1.2/debian

The first step is to edit the "modulelist"? file. Insert a line above the one that says

mysql MySQL

with the contents:

mssql MSSQL

Next, edit the file “rules” and look for the section starting with “configure-apache2-stamp”. You will see a line similar to:

--with-mysql=shared,/usr

Open a line above this with the contents:

--with-mssql=shared,/usr

Make sure not to forget the backslash on the end.Now, we must edit the “control” file in the same directory. Add this to the end of the file (NO SPACE after "shlibs:", "misc:", "php:"):

Package: php5-mssql
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs: Depends}, ${misc: Depends}, ${php: Depends}, php5-common (= ${Source-Version})
Description: MSSQL module for php5
This package provides a module for MSSQL using FreeTDS.
.
PHP5 is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed
from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown
in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write
dynamically generated pages quickly.

Move up a directory.

cd ..

Now, run:

dpkg-buildpackage

And go get something to eat. This will do the whole configure/compile for PHP and create debs in the parent directory. When this process is done, move up to the parent directory:

cd ..

And, you will see all of the PHP debs, including the new php5-mssql_[version].deb

Run a dpkg -i on the ones you need, and you should be all set to connect to MSSQL databases.

* * *

MEGAPALDIES autoram - tiešām strādā! Thank you!