To use different version of php use xampp for development and testing. Install different versions of xampp to different folders and switch to needed version with /opt/lampp symlink.
You can get different xampp versions for linux here
opt directory structure will looks like
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Jan 27 07:10 lampp -> /opt/lampp_1.7.7
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Sep 19 2011 lampp_1.7.7
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Sep 19 2012 lampp_1.8.1
drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Dec 8 16:26 lampp_1.8.2_x86_64
drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Dec 2 11:26 lampp_1.8.3_x86_64