[ale] Debian 3.0 as a server platform?

[Jim Popovitch]

You are missing the point I guess.  The reason for going with a distro
is that updates and apps can be easily installed and updated (up2date,
apt-get, etc).  The goal is for easy administration, not constantly
rebuilding Apache, Sendmail, ClamAV, SA, etc as they are updated every
other month.  ;-)

I DO know now to install individual packages in the middle of the night
while on vacation in Bora Bora.  What I want is to NOT have to do
that.  ;-)

-Jim P.

On Thu, 2005-06-02 at 12:32 -0400, James Sumners wrote:
> The JRE is simple to install on any platform; just download it and
> install it to /usr/java [default it seems] or /opt/java or whatever
> and add it to your path. I have found that the free implementations of
> java are crash prone. So, I stick with the non-free original
> implementation.
> 
> Apache 2.0 is just about as easy. The first build can take some time
> while you determine what configure options you want to use but there
> after all you have to do is use the config.nice file that is
> generated.
> 
> Spamassassin and ClamAV can be a bit tricky. I used Spamassassing from
> the unstable repository when I was using my desktop as my private
> email server and it worked well. I don't know how crusty the one in
> the stable archive is. However, adding the following two lines to your
> sources.list will fix that:
> deb http://www.backports.org/debian stable clamav
> deb http://www.backports.org/debian stable spamassassin
> 
> Sure, it could be one line but I like to keep them separated so I know
> how many potentially dangerous packages I am using.
> 
> Those examples really don't give me a reason to say that the stable
> branch is too old. There are easy solutions to the problems and the
> base system remains stable. Yes, I can see where this is a problem for
> people that want to use only the official repository and package
> manager. But, I find that to be a limited view of the operating
> system's abilities. Done correctly, Debian can be extended beyond what
> is in stable without sacrificing all of the benefits of it.
> 
> On 6/2/05, Jim Popovitch <jimpop at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-06-02 at 11:42 -0400, James Sumners wrote:
> > > I have yet to hear anything to back up the "I need newer features"
> > > statement. People that have a distaste for Debian stable love to use
> > > it but they never give examples of it. What packages in testing or
> > > unstable are necessary for you to run Debian on a server? Please, give
> > > me some examples.
> > 
> > How about these:  Spamassassin, ClamAV, Apache 2.0, a recent JRE,  ;-)
> > These aren't my requirements for Debian, just similar pain that I deal
> > with over on the Redhat side of the world.  ;-)
> > 
> > -Jim P.
>