Hey all,
I thought I'd write up some perspectives I've had after installing
Ubuntu server. I'd consider it as having close overlap to what we're
trying to do with the interactive install project. The purpose of this
post is not to copy, but just to get some perspective of what others
are doing. I generally thought the user experience was poor, but I
appreciate that mileage may vary.
o Every step brings up a new screen. Seems like the curses
infrastructure is massively
inflexible. When I configure, I get brought to a progress screen
and if the task is
simple the progress screen does stay for long. Lots of switching
here, hard to track
what is going on.
o First question is asking me for a language to get to a GRUB screen.
Then it asks me
again to choose a language. I appreciate there's likely to be a
difference between
the user and the actual install intention, but it feels kludgy.
o Automatic keyboard layout selection was terrible. It asked me to
type in a bunch of
keys. I ended up with a layout that certainly didn't reflect my
keyboard (consequent
fail on having to resort to dpkg-reconfigure console-setup which
asks a *different*
set of questions).
o During the partitioning step, it was relatively confusing
Guided - use entire disk
Guided - use entire disk and set up LVM
Guided - use entire disk and set up encrypted LVM
I chose the second, and brought me through a relatively confusing
set of screens. I'm
looking forward to seeing how ZFS can help simplify these sorts of
scenarios.
o Interestingly it only configures a single user, and assumes sudo
will be used for
administrative tasks
o Interestingly it allows encryption of your home directory with
ecryptfs
o Asks for proxy information
o Updates on the system have 3 options
No automatic updates
Install security updates automatically
Manage system with Landscape
Somewhat surprised there wasn't some sort of automatic update
option.
o Next up was package selection, and through tasksel they have a
couple of pre-defined
options to install from the CD (which I've taken a list of)
DNS server
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/dns-packages.txt
LAMP server
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/lamp-packages.txt
Mail server
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/mail-packages.txt
OpenSSH server
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/openssh-packages.txt
PostgreSQL database
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/postgresql-packages.txt
Print server
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/print-packages.txt
Samba file server
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/smb-packages.txt
Tomcat Java server
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/tomcat-packages.txt
Virtual Machine host
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/virt-packages.txt
Manual package selection
Unfortunately the last brings me into command line aptitude which
is utterly horrible. I chose
none of the above and ended up with a package list of
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/ubuntu-server-package-list.txt
o In general I like the idea of choosing a piece of software for a
particular task. Yes if you don't
like postfix you can install sendmail and configure it as your
preferred mailer. I think we
need to do this more, despite the politically charged decision
making :)
o No development tools in the default installs. The more I think
about it, the more appropriate
I think that decision is personally (outside being able to debug
the kernel in some shape or
form).
o There is a different version of the kernel for Ubuntu server vs
Ubuntu desktop. I don't know
how easy it would be to switch between them in the package manager.
o Nothing particularly different in the default install generally, as
a look through /usr/bin shows
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/ubuntu_server/ubuntu-binfiles.txt
Glynn
