By thove on

Hello folks,

I installed Drupal 6.1 and are very happy with that. I am not sure wether I can use 5.1-Modules or not. By now there are only a few modules for 6.1 out there.

Please don't answer "You should take the modules for your version". This is clear, of course.
So my question is: what are your experiences in general. Is ist a great danger to install 5.x-modules on a 6.1 core? Can I totaly destroy my installation? Or is it not a great risk? what can happen? Please understand: I really need some of the 5.x modules... Should I install 5.x first and update later? What would you think? I really like the way 6.1 works with content.

Greetings

Tom

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

modul’s picture

modul commented

Although you asked not to do so, I'm sorry I have to reply: "You should take the modules for your version". Drupal's philosophy opts for non-backward-compatibility. Sometimes it takes just 1 or 2 lines to make a (small) 5.x module compatible with 6.x, but for slightly more ambitious modules, considerable rewriting is required. So, in general, 5.x modules simply won't work in 6.x.

Can you damage your 6.x installation by installing 5.x? I sure hope not! Such damage could occur if your 5.x module would attempt to change the core database tables in a clumsy way (say: replace the 'nid' field with 'my_nid' or something moronic like that), but I do hope no module writer would ever do so.

Anyway, I wouldn't attempt installing 5.x modules on a live 6.x site. If you do want to experiment, only do so on a test site.

And what will happen most likely, is that you end up with a bunch of error messages. Try if you want, but not on a live site!

clivesj’s picture

clivesj commented

Of course, D6 is very nice. But you cannot hook-up D5 modules to D6 due to all differences:

http://drupal.org/node/114774

Luckilly you can't even engage D5 modules into D6:

core (Required)
As of version 6.x, Drupal core will refuse to enable or run modules that aren't explicitly ported to the right version of core. The .info file must specify which Drupal core compatiblity any module or theme has been ported to. This is accomplished by means of the new core attribute in the .info files.

If you are building a comprehensive site, it's really much to early to start-off with D6:
Two importand modules Views and CCK are not available yet.
Even not to mention Subscriptions, this is being rewritten now and is still in beta even for d5.

modul’s picture

modul commented

Ah, good to know that 6.x won't accept 5.x modules! That's a wise decision of the powers that be. And I concur: it is way to early to use Drupal 6.x for a more or less serious live site. One simply cannot live (well, at least not life as we know it) without Views, CCK and a couple of others, which are not yet available for Drupal 6. So: use Drupal 5.x if you want to go live.

clivesj’s picture

clivesj commented

I/m running a few corporate site's, and my planning for D5->D6 is end of Q3 of 2008

Sakrecoer’s picture

Sakrecoer commented

There goes my brandnew 6.1 installation in the trashbin..... :D
It looks amazing thou! The code noob i am loves the dragndrop thang!

So thanx for the info!
/reSet

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