Good side

But the guys (and girls) behind ISP Config shall hall props for one thing: They have great tutorials for setting up servers and the systems.

Bad side

One thing that ISPC3 really lacks is documentation/manuals. There isn’t any. And there should be. I’ve searched the web to find out if the system creates usernames for e-mail accounts and more. It doesn’t seem like it does. I would also like to change the scheme for creating databases and users. Can’t find documentation for how this is done.
And I have read that there is work being done on documentation – in 2009. This blog was written on April 4, 2010…

Other Tools:

Other tools for managing websites:
Blue Onyx (A fork of BlueQuartz, which again is the open source code that Sun released when they decided to stop developing the Cobalt servers). This is the one that I would have preferred if I had the chance.
Webmin (Although I wouldn’t call this an ISP tool)

If you have other suggestions, drop me a comment.

I am really looking forward to installing this LTS version as a clean install and not as an upgrade.
With LL Canonical proves that Linux as an desktop OS can look pretty and for some that is just as important as having the best programs available.

And I think that should be the next step for Canonical Ltd.

After the release of LL the guys and girls at Canonical shall visit the biggest software houses and pinpoint why they are not publishing their most popular products on the Linux platform. When they have gotten their answers, they should start adjusting releases of new versions according to the feedback they’ve gotten.

I believe it is when you have Photoshop, InDesign, Quark, Illustrator, MS Office (not likely to happen), industry standard software for accounting and more available on the Linux platform we can really start feeling the success of this Operating system that Linus Thorvalds of Finland once released.
I hope we get there.

And I must admit. It is nice to not think about viruses and such, not that this is something that worries me when I am using a computer with Windows installed. It is also nice to have a stable computer that does not show me the blue screen from time to time; and lastly: It is very nice to not reboot every time you have installed a new program or updated your system.

How ever: There are reasons for not using Linux for me anymore:

• I am developing in more than just PHP. I am also doing some C# development for the Windows operating system.
  Yes. I can use Mono for this type of work, but as the .Net framework is more known and better distributed (aka: Installed) on most systems, it is better to use native .Net and use Visual Studio.
  Also. When it comes to PHP-development I am moving from writing directly on the test-web server (aka on the laptop) and in stead write in the defined workspace of the IDE, and then move the code to the test web server. This because I don’t want to clutter my test web server with SVN-directories, nor do I want to accidentally upload SVN-directories to the production web server.
• Better PHP development tools
  If I move back to Windows I can choose from a wide range of programs. Like for instance PHPed or the PHP Delphi plugin which is a Rapid application Development tool. PHPed shall work on Linux under Wine, but I haven’t installed Wine, and I am not sure if I want to install and run wine.
• I need access to a clients network which is using a closed VPN-system.
  My client is using CheckPoint VPN which there was a Redhat (RPM) package for back in the days. Now there isn’t any such thing. And if you search for it, you’ll see that I am not alone here. To fix this I have borrowed a computer from this client which is a tad bit older than this one and quite a lot slower.
• Limitations in Open Source software
  As I am working on a database project that is soon to be launched, I need more than one type of export/import into this one. Currently the importing is CSV-files, but as Excel can export in XML, this is a serious alternative. This is also something that I can instruct partners on how to do. This way I can normalize external data.
  The alternative in Open Office is creating an XSLT document and transforming the sheet. The benefit with this solution is that you have more control on the outcome.
  And it would have been an option if most partners out there used Open Office. They aren’t. They are using MS Office.
  I’ve also read that the XSLT-support in Open Office isn’t really that easy to work with. There are very few messages that shows if something is wrong, and the only way to find out that there is something wrong with the XSLT-document, is that the program freezes. Now that’s user friendly… Not that XSLT document transformation is user friendly to begin with…
• I need accounting software and invoice software that supports Norwegian standards. I have found a Norwegian invoice program, but has failed to find accounting software.
• Quality: I really don’t think that the quality on Open Source software is that great. Yes, it cures and itch – mostly for the developer(s), but that’s pretty much it. (I believe I have written posts regarding the “business”-model behind Open Source Software before, please check).
• Linux based Desktop OS isn’t really that stable.
  I have had a few hard freezes and I have had soft freezes. Hard freezes is where the LEDs on the computer is blinking and everything is either black or frozen. Soft Freezes is where there are parts of the OS that works, while other things have stopped working. Like when I am writing this: The mouse pointer is frozen to the side of the screen – and it is impossible to move it around. So X or Mouse support has frozen… sigh.

As I am looking at my list now, there are less reasons for me to stay on Ubuntu and more reasons for me to move back to Windows. But I’ll give this a few more weeks and months and then we’ll see what happens.

That is, is, is … awesome (Again, I never really believed that I would ever write this in a blog post)

There are of course cons related to .Net web application development.
Configuring the IIS-server isn’t quite understandable, and you cannot go to the IIS.conf file to see what has been done to it in order to make it work like it is. So I would give Apache the victory here!

I have been working/maintaining/fixing on some websites that has been depended on .dll-files. One we recently had to upgrade from 1.1 to 3.5, and making it work under 3.5 wasn’t all that understandable – well at least not for me – but then again, I am still a Noob when it comes to .Net Web Application Development.
Again, I’ll give PHP the advantage here as it is much easier to understand what has been done. the PHP.ini-file and such is easy to either go through or diff against the default PHP.ini to spot differences.

But for rapidness, especially when you start a project from scratch – ASP.Net gets one point.

This is where PHP must be heading. Yes it is easier to start with PHP. Or at least that is what used to be the best argument to start programming your dynamic web solution with PHP. But dragging, do some coding, and so on, will mean that .Net development will narrow the gap between PHP and ASP.Net.

According to websites PHP is still the most popular language to use when it comes to web development.
A search on PHP and asp on GoogleFight returns:
301.000.000 (301 million) results for PHP and 98.800.000 (98.8 million) results for asp
ASP.net returns 30.400.000 (30.4 million) hits.

TIOBE Programming Community Index for January 2010 tells us that PHP is on the rise. It’s on third place behind Java and C, but in front of C++. VB is in fifth while C# is on 6th place. I believe I would put those two together to get some ASP.Net figgures.
The two/three languages below:
3 5 PHP 10.071% +1.19% A
5 4 (Visual) Basic 7.354% -1.81% A
6 6 C# 5.767% +0.16% A

PHP is still my language of choice, but I will follow ASP.Net closely. .Net 2.0 is dated and so I need a book for 3.5… (and probably 4.0) to see what’s new.

• You have more control.
  You know which commands you have to type or which files you need to change in order to achieve what you want. Like for instance setting up a samba server.
• It’s more stable
  Not having a GUI to run as well, means that the server is super stable.
• It does not require much from the hardware
  This is also quite important when you have old metal you’re using.

The cons are:

• Things tend to go by trial and error
  When you use the commando line and at the same are a noob like me on that area, you tend to spend more time trying and failing. But then again, this is how you learn to play the tools. And when you learn them, you become faster.
• Using a GUI is more intuitive
  Since I am currently at a client running only Windows servers, there are more GUI-tools to do what you need to do. There are less room for errors and so all you learn is how to start/stop/insert/update the current role (as they are called in the World of Windows). But I like that too. This means that you can’t really break anything (well, you can…).
• Sometimes using the commando line is annoying
  Setting up/installing Virtualbox is quite easy. Installing different guest OS is more of a hassle. And this is where I wish that GUI-development on Linux (Ubuntu/Gnome) was up to par on the Windows side when it comes to administering Virtualbox. I would very much like to see a GUI! and not just a web administration tool that is not yet up to par.

Things that I miss:
I would very much like to see a GUI on the Ubuntu Linux Server, but I don’t want to see Gnome or KDE. What I would like to see is some light GUI – like the one in Xubuntu (just can’t seem to remember the name), and maybe theme it so that it is either “like” Gnome or KDE.
Søren Hansen wrote a blog last year where he lifted some thoughts on how the Ubuntu Server should be like. I second his thoughts.
As I wrote in his comments, I to would like to see the installation being simpler. As I suggested in my comment: Why not create different setup schemes.
Let’s say you want to set up a VM server. Well, then you choose from a menu and this does all the tricks. It should even check if your hardware is suited for such tasks. Or if you want to run it as a file server (samba), or a web server (LAMP-stack/LAMR-stack or any other stack).

Ok. So back to installing the Ubuntu Server. I followed some other peoples suggestions when I installed the server. I believe I did install it twice since i made a mistake here and there.
When it came to choice of Virtual Machine software I did browse and watch a few tutorial videos.
Xen seems very exiting, but I didn’t go for that – this time. Reason was that the installation locked the VM closely to the host OS. Which is OK I guess. This means that the vendor has secured it self from some incompatibility problems related to other Linux Versions.
Then I looked at VMWare Server. As I didn’t want to spend money – this time around – the Workstation option was out of the question (maybe in the future). I have tried VMWare Server earlier and liked it. But since I am on the ‘I want to learn something new’-trail, I decided to go for Suns VirtualBox. And it seems OK.
It does what you expect from such a software.
What I don’t like is that there is a lack of GUI software for it. I don’t know if I can install a VirtualBox GUI administration tool on my laptop and control the host/guest on the server. If I can, great. If I can’t, well, then I have officially suggested a feature for the VirtualBox Team at Sun (soon Oracle?).
The VB community does provide a web administration tool written in Python, but this one is far from ready. You can create new VMs and start/stop, but that’s also it. No snapshop options or such things. Hopefully this tool will have a steep development curve in 2010.
In my VM I am running a Windows 2003 server (standard). Again just to learn. But I must say that is quite different to work on a GUI server than on a CLI-server. The W2K3-server doesn’t do much yet, but I hope that I can put it to some sort of use. I’m also going to install a W2K8-server on the machine, but the lack of disk space and RAM is halting this process. Hopefully in the near future the machine will be running a 500gb disk (ide!) and 2gb ram.
Well. I think I stop there. Please do suggest things that I can do to learn more on having a server. I might set up a domain at home – but I’m not sure as this house only has two computers in full use and some others just as guests. Having a domain for two computers seems a bit over the top… but then again, why not!

This is what I did to get the server back online:
In /etc/network/interfaces:
# The primary network interface
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.0.175
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.89

# wireless-* options are implemented by the wireless-tools package
wireless-channel auto
wireless-mode Managed
wireless-key XXXXXXXXXXXXX
wireless-essid YYYYYYYYYYYYYY
# dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed

# Static routing
pre-down route del -net 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.0.89
post-up ip route add 192.168.0.0 via 192.168.0.89 dev wlan0
post-up ip route add default via 192.168.0.89 dev wlan0

What I have done is: Moved the part related to networking to the top of the section for the current network card (in my case wlan0 (a wireless USB card)).
Then – for some reason – I had to add two default gateways to the route.

But that’s not all
in rc.local I added the following code:
ip route del default via 192.168.0.89 dev wlan0
/etc/init.d/networking restart

# Starting VirtualBox
/etc/init.d/vboxdrv.dpkg-bak setup

# Starting VirtualBox
echo "Starting VirtualBox VM Windows Server"
/usr/bin/VBoxHeadless -startvm "WinServer" --vrdp on &

What this part does is:
First it deletes the default gateway, then it restarts the Network.

Then I am starting the VirtualBox part. For some reason I get a message saying that the header modules are not loaded, so that’s why I have to run the vboxdrv setup -command. (on my box it is renamed to vboxdrv.dpkg.bak, but I have also – after doing this – copied this so that I have a vboxdrv file in that directory)
When that part is done, I start the current server with –vrdp set to on. The & sign is there so that the VM is running in a separate “job”.

I hope this helps someone. If someone out there can explain why this might have happened, and how I can clean up the mess, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

System info:
Linux ubuntu-server 2.6.31-16-generic-pae #53-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 8 05:20:21 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

The Gnome Do is where you write the name of the application you want to start, which is a very handy feature. A reason for me to use a dock is to get rid of the panes in Gnome. With Gnome Do – which also has the desktop switch, and hope that I can soon remove the bottom pane. The top one is still safe (and is auto-hidden).

Important! I am not saying that Gnome Do is the best dock software for Gnome. At the moment the best option – for me.

Last time I used Gnome Do I felt that the system became unstable. I haven’t noticed any such things – yet!

Links to the different Docks available for Gnome:

AWN
Cairo-Dock
GDD (Gnome Do-Docky):
Docky