[CoLoCo] Webmin???

[Neal McBurnett]

On Wed, Apr 02, 2008 at 01:46:52PM -0600, Kevin Fries wrote:
> ahh nuts, here we go again.
> 
> Linux is supposed to be about choice, but the Ubuntu distro is more and
> more showing that its just not industrial strength.  ebox does not have
> the industry wide support that webmin has.  Funny thing is that I often
> use webmin only for firewall configuration.  And, ebox does not appear
> to support shorewall, or any other standard firewall configuration
> utility.

With webmin, I think the issue is complicated by underlying approaches
of different distros.

An advantage of the debian/ubuntu packaging system is unusually smooth
upgrades, due in part to the standards on how the packages deal with
configuration files in the debian policy and deb-conf programs.
RPM/yum is far less mature in this area, last I heard.

If a package like webmin changes config files in such a way that it
breaks upgrades, it doesn't surprise me that the package isn't
supported.  That doesn't mean the package can't be fixed, though I
guess it is hard.  I don't know the details, but please help if you
can.

> Again, Linux is supposed to be about choice, but more and more Ubuntu is
> removing/limiting perfectly good packages and I am being told what to
> run (VMWare and VBox last week, Webmin this week).

Please stop this misinformation.  As we carefully explained in the
last conversation, nothing about VMWare is being removed or limited by
Ubuntu.  There is a new free vmware tools package in Hardy, and as
soon as VMWare gets their proprietary stuff working and supported it
will be in the Partner repository.  And of course we'd welcome them
open-sourcing it....  Similarly for VBox.

>   I almost feel like I
> have been advocating the Linux worlds version of Microsoft (we will tell
> you what email server to run, we will tell you what database to run,
> etc, trust us, we know best).

More total nonsense.  Ubuntu offers way more packages than CentOS, And
comparing this to Microsoft - huh....

Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/

> Kevin Fries
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 10:19 -0700, Neal McBurnett wrote:
> > Webmin has not been in any Ubuntu release since at least dapper:
> > 
> >  http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=webmin&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all
> > 
> > The server team has run into many problem with webmin, as ubotu will
> > tell you:
> > 
> > (11:11:53 AM) nealmcb: !webmin
> > 
> > ubotu: webmin is no longer supported in Debian and Ubuntu. It is not
> > compatible with the way that Ubuntu packages handle configuration
> > files, and is likely to cause unexpected issues with your system. See
> > !ebox instead.
> > 
> > (11:11:53 AM) nealmcb: !ebox
> > 
> > ubotu: ebox is a web-based GUI interface for administering a server. It is designed to work with Ubuntu/Debian style configuration management. See the plans for Hardy at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EboxSpec
> > 
> > webmin really doesn't understand debian systems and can change
> > your config files in ways that make upgrading, etc, pretty dicey.
> > 
> > Ebox in gutsy is not recommended, but should be much better in hardy.
> > Testing very much welcomed!!!
> > 
> > Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/
> > 
> > 
> > On Wed, Apr 02, 2008 at 10:36:06AM -0600, Jeremy Schroeder wrote:
> > > I think the one in the repo's was really old, and in the forums and on the
> > > interwebs its suggested to install from webmin's site.
> > > 
> > > Jeremy
> > > 
> > > PS I love webmin!
> > > 
> > > On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 10:16 AM, Joey Stanford <joey at canonical.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > >     was taken out for some reason I suspect. Don't know.   I've been
> > >     installing it by hand lately from the webmin page.
> > > 
> > >     On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Kevin Fries <kfries at cctus.com> wrote:
> > >     > Didn't webmin used to exist in the repos?
> > >     >
> > >     >  I can't seem to find it any longer, and so I have been installing it
> > >     >  allot from the webmin website.  Does anyone here know if there is a
> > >     >  reason it is not in the repos?
> >