The world is coming to an end...

Well, of sorts....

So I figured I would install some gallery software one of the linux debian servers I have. Went fine, no issues. Then installed phpbb2, no issues there. Figured I would use the site for family stuff (gallery and calaboration). Then thought "why not just merge the 2 so we could use the same login" right? Simple thought? yes/no?

Found phpnuke which is compadible with phpbb2, and gallery (yeay). Installed, configured, added gallery2, nothing worked.
reinstalled, configured, added gallery2 (checking over all integration documentation), still nothing.

Sifted through the internet for answers. Tried 101 solutions (All different, and all working for those individuals), still nothing.

Did some hack jobs, got it working....

ahhh, finally... Well, perhaps an event calendar? Searching.... 10 results, all:
A. Broken Links
B. Sites long past forgotten (and not updated)
C. Sites that require registration for download, yet has issues with the sendmail for thier activation links....

ARG!!!! Honestly, the whole 'opensource' is great and all, but it doesn't ever seem to work. People loose interest, developers move or die....

Hell, spent the last 2 days just getting SSL to work on one of the sites (huge pain...).
Ended up adding in the mod_ssl, screwing up apache pretty good (good thing I made a backup), restored, omg, it wont work because newer dependancies are installed!!!

Dammit, back to trying apache2. After 2 days of hard work, finally got it all back up and running (and SSL still is giving me grief). This was after about 12 install/uninstalls

I love the packaging system, its very nice. Hate the documentation, I feel like a moron... The answers are few and far between because out of the thousands of linux users, only a small percentage are using debian, and even less of that actually post their issues/fixes publicly....

So I got off Windows about 9 months back cause the licensing is killing me financially. I have been told linux is much more supported than it used to be years back when I first gave it a few trial runs.. Aside from that, Windows asp packages suck balls! Honestly, I'd have to restart one of the windows servers nightly just to let the memory leaks clear up.. And most of those packages (asp) cost money (and still no support).

Gripes>>
Windows Servers:
Licensing-have fun, start smoking now to deal with it
Commersus-blows
Imail-A load of steamy crap
Exchange-more than i need/too expensive
sqlserver-too expensive
mysql-unstable
ASP-Memory holes up the waazoo
apache-unstable and barely used outside of a fansite
ASP Packages-costly, buggy, mostly crap

Linux Servers:
Which flavor do you have? ohhh, never heard of it....
Opensource-the developer changed his name and moved to brazil
SquirrlMail- Need IMAP (courir is good)
Curior - Need Qmail
Qmail - Need (insert 10 other packages)
Sendmail - installed over by qmail, still has residual depenancies screwing with things
Simbra - needs its own server (nothing else on it)
phpnuke/phpbb2/gallery2-good luck finding good support forums (that actually have a developer that visits them)
SSL-I think I missed an end of line somewhere (Sarcasm)

Although>>
OpenComerse-Good robust software
Gallery2-Also good, theme choices suck though, custom themes are a plus..
Phpbb2- ok, but is hacked easily
MySQL - Runs great!

sorry... Last 3 days have been utter hell sifting through newsgroups, support forums, and google results...
/rant off

You just need a single central Linux place, like the forums for whatever distro you are using :)

I recently got a solid LAMP server set up in Ubuntu 6.10 Desktop along with separate user accounts for each site, automatic subdomain creation for each site, FTP (for each individual site, thanks to the decision to give them all separate users), and PHP 4/5 running side-by-side.
Sadly, MySQL still has to be done by hand for each user. It's hardly a problem, though :)
Planning to run the Nessus Network Vulnerability scanner (or whatever it's called) shortly for good measure.

It took about a day (spread out, little tasks) because I was a bit unsure initially (the old server was HORRIBLE!).

Mostly, I used this guide here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP

I've never tried SSL... probably a bit of a pain. Again, Wikis and forums tend to be the best places to search.
I do remember coming across a quick tutorial on SSL somewhere when I was setting up my server.

Sadly, config files are rather a necessity... although there are a few neat GUI programs sitting around such as Pure-Admin (for Pure-Ftpd) and MySQL-Admin.
I remember coming across an awful looking (but probably working) GUI configuration program for Apache. I have gotten used to its script files, though :)


*SCREAMS!*
Oh... Debian?
Yep, I've heard bad things of that one's package management stuff.
Debian is great and all (lots of distros borrowing stuff from it -- they'd probably be nowhere without the work those guys have done), but I recommend you switch.
Their newer stuff may be a bit nicer as well. ...What version of Debian is it? I get the impression that your Debian servers have been around for a while.


Just hunt around a bit is the best advice I can give...
Some open source software is awful. The best stuff is the most active stuff, of course... Try Sourceforge? (Or examing the version numbers; they can tell a lot).
I've actually rarely encountered broken links with the software that I'm using, so those are probably all either for software that isn't worth your time anyway or some really poorly made help sites.

Havent you heard we all dies and sun is gona hollow the earth ! (Some day you see some day)

Accaly this is old news i gues :)

in 2004 there was a market research that said 25% of servers used linux. That's actually what it's famous for, as opposed to 3% desktop computers in the same survey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

I have redhat and it took me some time to just figure out how to get it to auto-boot, like without the login.
I felt a numbskull for some time with it, but you learn and you get better at it. I think the appeal of linux is that it's free/cheap and is opensource and currently has no draconian licensing policies, fingers crossed it stays that way. But as for actually getting something to work in it, like with your server fiasco, well you're pretty much in uncharted territory there.

Good luck!

You can't get Linux running everything, but you can get everything running Linux :P

Save the cheerleader. Save the world. ;)

I've been addicted to that show since it started! That and Prison break are the only 2 shows my wife and I catch (and DVR when we cant) on a regular basis.

Thanks for the words of wizdom and encouragement guys. I appreciate it. I just needed to rant to a bunch of geeks that can empathize with the woes of setting up a good linux installation (server).



It's actually kinda funny in a way. between all the google searches, newsgroup searches, forum searches, and config modifications I did Friday, Sat, and Sun, Sunday night I actually had to walk away from it a bit (when i made that post) because my fingers wouldn't move anymore for me (slight carpel-tunnel).


Sarge 3.1 I believe. I just setup this server about 6-7 months back initially. It's running on a Duel P3 850 box with 2 40 gig on a raid (1 gig ram). I initally set it up to get off windows. I loved the packaging system so much that I setup another server (Single P3 650) just for file storage.

Since then have aquired a Linux full on (2 U) Dual P3 800 with 4 chetah 36gig drives (10000 rpm). Haven't decided what I want to do with that yet...

I still have 2 Windows2000 server boxes down there (ones an old e-machine, another just a P2 450). One was the web server (haven't touched it since I switched over to the debian setup, its still down there serving pages, just have the router not routing too it currently), and the other is the email server (IMail, bleh).

As soon as I can get this SSL stuff taken care of, I want to move email over to a linux machine... But that probably means another 3 years of configurations....

I must say, I really like PHPNuke for the most part. The modules system is really well done in my opinion. Problem is that so many that have wrote modules for it, let their sites die off, which means broken links (basically what happened to the blitz showcase). In most cases I figure I could just write my own module, however I am not good at all with web design (I can do it, do code well, but when it comes to something cosmetic with CSS style sheets, I am a complete moron).

The hard part is finding support for phpnuke. Their site doesnt host forums, so you have to go to a 3rd party site (and they have tons, one for each country it almost seems like). I want to search a general support database, not go to 50 different sites doing searches and trying fixes... Oh well, nature of the beast I guess.

nonono I can't die... I haven't seen the Jolson Picture...

I like PHP Nuke too... if you find some support out there post some links!!! :)

Well, I just got SSL running (little bastard of a configuration). OSCommerce is working well with it, and I went to godady.com and picked up a 2 year SSL cert for about 35 bucks. Hopefully that solves all my issues and I never have to touch any of it again :-)