Re: And so it begins...

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: David Gibbs
>
> Joe Pluta wrote:
> > So if you get two appliances from different vendors, you may easily have
> two
> > completely different distros.  It's not like you can just copy the files
> > from one Linux to the other; the variations in Linux are nearly infinite
> > (heck, I had a world of fun just getting some Webmin plug-ins to work).
>
> Depends on the app and the vendor.  Personally I think using an
> appliance is fine if you're going to get 100% support from the vendor
> (the kind you pay for).  In that case you don't need to know, nor do you
> care, what the underlying OS is.
>
> If you're going to have to manage the app yourself (or you want the app
> integrated into your infrastructure), then using appliances is going to
> end up driving you crazy.  Better to use the appliance to decide if you
> like it, and then deploy the app on your own servers.

Hmm.  I disagree, but my reasons start to veer into opinion.  We'll just
have to wait and see.  In my very naïve opinion, I think that the idea of a
pre-configured appliance is beautiful for those of us with enough knowledge
of computers to be able to figure things out on our own, but without the
time to become expert.  And each type of appliance has its own pros and
cons.

For the Wiki, I haven't had to do much except install Samba, nor do I want
to.  I want that thing to run on its own.  I will use it as an end user,
because I don't want to learn all of its guts (the fact that it uses C# and
Mono is a large part of that <grin>).  So in that case, I want an appliance
that entirely shields me from the intricacies.  If it breaks, yeah, I'm in
trouble.  That's why you back them up.

On the other hand, for the mail server I started from a minimal CentOS
install and I've so far installed postfix, dovecot, BIND, Samba, Webmin and
Squirrelmail.  I have edited config files and so on, and I'm relatively
comfortable with what the machine is doing.  I wouldn't go so far as to
install a package from source, but I am pretty comfortable technically with
what I've done to this point.

So in this case, the two appliances do different things for me even though
they both nominally use Linux.  Combining them just to have only one image
doesn't make sense.  Like so many things, I think the choice of whether you
have multiple Linux appliances or one big centrally managed machine is a
business decision.

Joe