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Mandrake as a server


aioshin
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that's being a little hard on MDK. It's actually a very good server distro so far as capabilities go, remember we have MNF, Corporate Server and ADVX products based heavily on the main distro...MDK has absolutely fantastic apache packages, for example, thanks to Oden. There's drakwizard for easy server setup when you're starting out, and just about every server app you could need is packaged. People always think MDK is somehow not 'suited' to be a server but I've never actually seen anyone come up with anything less vague as a reason for not using it...

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that's being a little hard on MDK. It's actually a very good server distro so far as capabilities go, remember we have MNF, Corporate Server and ADVX products based heavily on the main distro...MDK has absolutely fantastic apache packages, for example, thanks to Oden. There's drakwizard for easy server setup when you're starting out, and just about every server app you could need is packaged. People always think MDK is somehow not 'suited' to be a server but I've never actually seen anyone come up with anything less vague as a reason for not using it...

 

You mentioned it, the wizards.

The new NFS thing add some bizarre security crap* and the internet connection wizards are just plain crap and the samba wizard breaks webmin support etc. It was the NFS thing made me deinstall MDK 10.1 since the NFS just wouldn't work unless I actually did it through the stupid wizards... like editing /etc/exports isn't good enough...

 

basicaly mandrake have set out to make a noobie friendly distro and its gone so far its unusable as a server distro now .. linuxconf is removed and webmin incompatible and all that's left is pretty wizards that sometimes work and sometimes leave the system in a complete mess.

 

This is fine for noobies but * the reason its crap is it installs a whole load of stuff without asking.... so you don't know what its actually doing... like pppoe-conf etc... whay can't itr just say what its doing? Why is it selecting DSL means pppoe conf and when if its an ethernet modem it should be lan...because its baby language for noobies and they try to shield them from actually understanding what it does.

 

Now that's harsh!

 

:oops:

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For ease of use I guess you could install Plesk - does it work on Mandrake?

 

I know that Ensim's Webppliance doesn't as far as I can tell.

 

Well, thats the problem... do standard tools work or not...

I also work with Solaris , IRIX and AIX... they all work with webmin etc.

If I use a linux distro then I expect it to be at least as 'open' as Solaris! I want to use the same admin tools etc. not have to learn especially per distro for llinux... I have nothing against distro tools, just tools that stop the more standard tools being used.

 

If you wanna use MDK and are certain that you will never want to change distro then go ahead and commit to learning crappy tools and paying for training on crappy tools. If you think you might possibly change distro sometime in the future (say your software supplier won't support MDK) then your time is better learned using standard tools.

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gowator: so, don't use the wizards. They're meant for newbies, not experts. What's incomplete about webmin?

The new 10.2+ NFS config doesn't work because MDK have quietly implemented PAM auth on nfs. After managing to export my home but not my movies for a whole day I just installed debian.

 

However loads of stuff in webmin gets broken by Mandrake if you use the MDK RPM's for webmin Samba (which I don't even want but it seems determined to install, etc. etc.) and if you use the internet connection wizards then last time I used one it sent me in an endless loop installing pppoe-conf and then refusing to change to LAN.

 

The problem seems to be MDK are putting more and more additional functionality into the wizards and this is conflicting with tools like linuxconf and webmin which I rely on across distro's. This is why I will not use Suse, because they have YAST and it forces you to use it.... even if some things can still be achived other ways.

 

Any config tool mandrake can make is a joke compared to a real app like webmin and will never have all the modules ... this then makes a problem if parts can only be set-up using the wizards and/or hours of working out what they did... With 10.1-10.2 the NFS change was massive and the result my NFS shares didn't work... an absolutely untenable position. Noobies might not care but I do.... but then i have to use the wizards for one thing... I would prefer to be able to just not install any drak wizards but last time I tried they have insinuated themself so that you mightest well use LFS/gentoo as not install them....

(also if you install from webmin tarball there is much more functionality than the RPM.... )

 

They also change radically in functionality across releases, again a big no-no to anyone serious.

 

Its a real pain....try the one I remember...just add a line to /etc/exports then exportfs -ra and you get connection refused, (perhaps only after pre-using the share your home directory) but the problem is I don't *know* .. I just can't imagine Debian doing this across a release, even though a full Debian release is a much bigger thing

 

When it all boils down they have dumbed down the distro so far it has become not only suitable for noobies but to an extent unsuitable for professionals. Like I say, if you want to invest time and effort in mandrakeisms and your sure that you won't ever need to use another distro then no harm... there is always a way however it sometimes takes longer than I can be bothered...

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