Excellent write up. I am completely in agreement with your statement: >> 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 :)
g On 9/23/09 10:36 PM, Glynn Foster wrote: > 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 > _______________________________________________ > caiman-discuss mailing list > caiman-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/caiman-discuss
