install php on linux from 1and1 VPS

I am experienced in PHP, but I have never installed it. We have just upgraded onto a VPS from 1and1 and now we need to upgrade php ourselves apparently. We want to go from 5.1.4 to the latest, but don't know where to start. I looked here

http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.unix.apache2.php

But I can't find the apxs path.

I was hoping to find someone who had experience of doing this on 1and1 vps, but failing that here is the link that shows my phpinfo, http://spotblue.co.uk/phpinfo.php

I was hoping you may be able to direct me from that. I am willing to answer as many questions to get this clear, as I know the first time will be the hardest.

I'm not trying to replace EightBitTony's answer, because it's excellent, but if you decide you want to push ahead with getting a later PHP on Centos 5, you do have some options.

There are a set of packages in the regular updates repository called php53*. If you would prefer them, uninstall your current PHP packages (yum remove php php-cli php-xml php-common...), and install the corresponding php53 packages (yum install php53 php53-cli php53-xml php53-common...).

You may wish to check that there are corresponding 5.3 packages for everything you're currently running before doing the above.

Upgrading PHP should simply be a matter of using your Linux's package manager.

If it's Debian (or Ubuntu), then apt-get, if it's CentOS then yum, etc.

PHP 5.1 is pretty old, what Linux distribution did you get on your VPS?

Edit: Ah, I see from your phpinfo it's CentOS. Probably CentOS 5? The versions of code on CentOS 5 are pretty far behind. You either need to find an more up-to-date repository (see MadHatter's response), or download all the source files yourself and build new versions. If you're asking this question, I suggest you don't try building from source.

It's a long time since I had to go looking for newer versions of stuff on CentOS so I'll let someone else answer. The other option is move to CentOS 6 if 1and1 will let you (probably still back level, but better than 5).