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 but configure them 
by another package that also depends on a set of combinational packages.
For example amavis doesn't check for spam and virus by default. But when 
installed using the 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 these 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