> From: Paul Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>
> Has anyone found a comparable template system to e-smith?
Webmin and linuxconf are the more generic contenders but
they don't (and probably can't) match the interface
simplification that e-smith manages by combining
slightly-related concepts into a single form:
add a user, get entries in ldap, passwd, smbpasswd
add an information bay, get the samba/appletalk share,
ftp server, web server, etc.
add a 'host' entry, get DNS and optionally dhcpd hardware
address entries.
add a group, get a unix permission group and a mail list.
and so on...
The problem is that making a sensible user interface has
tied the underlying code/templates to several specific
versions of different programs at once so it is not easy
to update them. I'd like to see something like Ganymede
which keeps its own database independent of any OS or
programs so if you felt like switching to freeBSD one day
it would not be all that difficult. The e-smith config
'philosophically' would allow that and the data itself
could probably be moved into LDAP so it could be used
directly without the overhead of Ganymede's java server
which is overkill for a small site.
> I would also like to see some emphasis on how to safely REMOVE
> functionality rather than always adding more. To me, less is very
> often more.
That's built into the base Redhat distribution which lets you pick
exactly what you want to install or pick some handy pre-set combinations.
E-smith would probably get a lot more contributed work if the base
iso image contained all the development tools and an install option
to load them in a single step. You are correct that you don't want
these in many cases on a production machine, but given the nature of
current open source distributions, why should anyone have to waste
a lot of time to be able to recompile something? Having the tools
available to everyone is the way the distributions got to the point
where e-smith could start with their version.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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