Disappointed with Ubuntu Server, could be used by such a wider audience

[Stephan Hermann]

Hi,

On Fri, 1 Aug 2008 17:04:14 +0200
Remco <remco47 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Stephan Hermann <sh at sourcecode.de>
> wrote:
> > But what do you (not you in particular) want to do at home?
> >
> > Setting up a webserver is easy...and adding a drupal or blog
> > software, too. The default apache2 package from debian/ubuntu gives
> > you most of the needed setup from the time after installation. You
> > just need to adjust at least your IP or your hostname, but that's
> > it. No need to install dangerous third level tool which are playing
> > with the config and adding mostly uneeded stuff.
> 
> What if you want to set up a (POP+SMTP) mail server? That's a lot more
> involved than just installing a package. It should be as easy as
> installing it and adding allowed addresses+logins. As you said, Apache
> is already that easy (though becomes more powerful with rapache), why
> stop there?


Fact One: an ISP who allows people running smtp servers should be
punished. Private users should use an SMTP Gateway at their ISP or on
some root server, but shouldn't be able to send via smtp server <->
smtp server. (HInt: Spammers are using those methods)

Setting up SMTP + POP3 server is definitly nothing you want to have at
home...because it's unreliable. No usecase here.

People who have a clue about those topics, don't do this, only people
without a clue are trying to do this.

That's my opinion and good to know that many of my colleagues are
agreeing here.

Fact Two: I don't even see a usecase to setup a public webserver at
home. Yes, freaks like me or eventually you are doing that, but we know
what we do...but to be honest, I have a webserver running which is not
available from the outside...for public service there are enough
servers who are providing those services much better).

> What about a file/music/video server? A family has bought a box which
> will be used as central storage. Any computer in the LAN must have
> access to it (through NFS? Samba?), and the family wants to be able to
> play music by just starting Rhythmbox and discovering the server. The
> same goes for videos and Totem.

Well, I would say, that a DreamBox is much better as homevideobox then
any linux server...ok, buy a already installed mythbuntu box or
whatever...don't deal with nfs, samba ...yourself. Most partnership
will break doing this....really. 

Serious, for a normal familiy I would advise to by ready made
appliances..they are tested, and are usable (well not everytime, but
they work in the set ranges of usecases). the prices for those
appliances are most of the time cheaper then to by a good PC box for
doing this.

Well, the usecase that people want to watch their movies on the TV you
didn't mention ;)


> 
> > but there is a difference between really doing admin work, where you
> > need to touch the config files in /etc or whereever and the simple
> > work you need to do at home..I know those lamp tools from windows,
> > and it's horrible how those packages are degrading your system to a
> > potential security risk for you and your family, because it's too
> > easy to do something really stupid.
> 
> That's what the GUI needs to prevent: doing stupid things. A GUI can
> do this much better than a configuration file. A GUI usually forces a
> sane configuration, while a config file has limitless possibilities.

A GUI will never prevent doing stupid things. If the GUI doesn't fit
your needs, there is always the risk that you start playing around with
something else and make things worse...it happened in the 90ties and it
will happen in the 20ties..Really, a GUI doesn't help without the
knowledge of what to do. It can actually help to ease your work when
you know it, but having 500 or 1000 servers it's not possible to use
GUI tools, there are better tools.

> For example: I can imagine a simple button for a hypothetical Ubuntu
> Home Server which says: "Enable weblog". It will make sure a LAMP
> server is set up properly, and some default weblog software will be
> installed. Everything has been secured by default, through the system
> login. It just tells the user that it can find his weblog at a certain
> URL. It will also give directions for setting up the router and buying
> a domain name in order to make it accessible to the world.

As I said, there are companies who are providing those services much
better then you will ever do at home...they do backups for you, without
your interaction, they have a contract that outages are only 0.01% per
year to this server etc. all those services you can't get at home. And
the work to stay up2date is much more then you imagine...even on Ubuntu
and even with apt.
You know, people with windows, they always get this little icon with
updates available...how many of them are doing the updates everytime
this pops up? (same question also comes for ubuntu or any linux distro
in general).

I do like the idea of an entainment home server or a media center
edition of ubuntu, but it shouldn't be used for webserver or smtp
server at home (*shiver*)

regards,

\sh