sberaud wrote: > I'm thinking that with all the hassles I am having with my Mandrake > box, maybe the switch to Ubuntu would be cost effective in the long > run if it works as solidly as Debian in a server env. > > Anybody here have any experience with it? > > The basic question I have is one of weather it comes configured with > sane defaults or will it be an exercise in grunt force hand > configuration? Samba is a serious consideration as I am very new to it > (I have only recently had windows running on the network) and Mandrake > made it easy, which means I am rather ignorant to its inner workings. > > How well does it work on older equipment? > > Is VNC slow like it is in the new Mandriva or SuSE? > > I figure I can be off-line for 24 hours at best... is it even remotely > realistic for a non-guru to get an Ubuntu based, full blown Internet > server environment (Apache, Perl, PHP, MySQL, bind, Postfix, POP3 & > IMAP, SSH, VNC, Samba, FTP) up and running in that time? m. Beraud: It is certainly possible to get an Ubuntu box up and running as a server in less than a hour or two, and the defaults set are certainly sane. That being said, the same applies to just about any distribution in the hands of someone who is familiar with it. I and others on the list have extensive experience with Ubuntu. Ubuntu has become my preferred desktop / end-user distro. I've switched my 70+ year old parents to Ubuntu recently from Windows with great results. For production commercial servers, I use Debian stable rather than Ubuntu, as it is better tested, has extensive installation history and very conservative package selection. Ubuntu is happier with current generation equipment, and Debian stable works better with older hardware. Avoid installing anything not necessary like X etc. >From all your discussions taking place here over the last couple of days, and your valiant efforts - perhaps you may want to consider asking if an experienced sysadmin be willing to walk you through this process. Many of us here earn our livings doing this type of thing, and we are always willing to help and educate. As far as downtime, I don't think I've ever had more than a two or three minutes of downtime on a server switchover - cycling ISP facility routers to clear arp cache problems is about the only time-intensive step. I usually handle swaps at 2-3:00AM to avoid trouble. Typically, you bring up the new box in parallel to the existing box, and switchover only when _everything_ works. VNC's perceived responsiveness is directly related to server hardware horsepower/loading, size of pipe, end-to-end network latency, compression and encryption if used. It appears you are biting off a very large chunk of work, over some very complex networking applications, and it may a little overwhelming to expect one person on a steep learning/re-learning curve to be able to handle everything alone. Just my two cents worth. -- Bill Strosberg, CISSP