Configuration packages

[Jurjen Stellingwerff]

Hello all,

Moving from debian to ubuntu means a lot for me. Packages can now be
updated without tons of questions fired at me and a lot of work is done
on the ease of configuration now. Thanks a lot for that.

But I think there should be done more than this to really help people
that want to build servers.

1 - pick a list of packages that will be the default in their category,
just like any of the 3 ubuntu desktops.
   this is already done some way but outside synaptic not a lot of
documentation is found on them
2 - create a webpage that lists those packages for all people.
3 - create a set of meta-packages that installs *and* configures them:
   . ubuntu-webserver (the lamp stack, phpmyadmin)
   . ubuntu-fileserver (samba, quota, tools)
   . ubuntu-mailserver (postfix, spamassassin, amavis, clamav,
courier-imap, webmail, quota)
   . ubuntu-sqlmailserver (mailserver with configured mysql backend,
sasl-auth, mysql)
   . ubuntu-firewall (bind, iptables-commit on start-up, squid,
firewall configuration tool)

The idea is to leave the basic packages as they are now but configure
them by another (meta-)package that also depends on a set of packages.
For example amavis doesn't check for spam and virus by default. But when
installed using the ubuntu-mailserver packages it is turned on because
you are sure that spamassassin and clamav are installed already by
dependency.

It should be possible to combine multiple meta-packages in any way. But
ubuntu-sqlmailserver should conflict with ubuntu-mailserver because of a
lot of different configuration.

I am willing to write a basic version of these meta packages. But I'm
not convinced I will have the spare time to maintain them very long.

Is there any interest in these meta packages and are you willing to
include these into ubuntu-server when they are somewhat stable?

What is your opinion on the postfix vs exim discussion? We should choose
one of them as a base. I have more knowledge of postfix so I am biased
but I don't know what other people here think of it.

Jurjen