Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 16:07:25 +0000 From: Andrew Boothman <andrew@cream.org> To: Pierrick Brossin <pbrossin@swissgeeks.com> Cc: Avleen Vig <lists-freebsd@silverwraith.com>, "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Easy Server Message-ID: <3DDA61BD.6050307@cream.org> References: <20021119092051.K53207-100000@apple.silverwraith.com> <1037698640.3dda0650474a8@www.swissgeeks.com>
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Pierrick Brossin wrote: > I have the time to make a basic install and then install each package I do want. > > Last time I tried, I had my ADSL connection running fine, Firewall configured > (almost everything closed), DHCPd, HTTPd, FTPd, SSH and DNS (was trying BIND and > djbdns). > Then I saw I didn't have much time to continue.. I had troubles with the > firewall customization, samba was always giving errors, had issues with djbdns.. > wanted to get back to BIND but a bunch of people told me djbdns is the one I > should take. Then someone told me it's for professional and I had to use BIND. > I was really lost so I backuped /etc/ and some other stuff and put the machine > in a cupboard at home... And 1-2 months later I was posting here to find a > flexible and easy to install complete freebsd server. > But I was wrooooong :D > Have to give me time to make this damn server work I think! [Moving to -chat, this is more of a random rant than answering the original question :-) ] :-) I think everyone has been in your situation at one time or another. But, I don't think any Unix system should be easy and quick to install. Operating Systems by their nature are very complicated things and when you add the complexities of web servers, mail servers, dns servers,... on top it gets even worse. But unless you take the time to make sure you understand what is going on and how the different parts interact, you'll never be able to troubleshoot your own problems. This is exactly what happened to you. If everything was installed and configured for you, I bet you wouldn't even know where to look for your system's configuration files let alone what to put in them or what the potential problem might be. FreeBSD has a steep learning curve, and I like it that way. You should take the time to learn your way around the system. Buy books (DNS & BIND by Albitz and Liu is a great book), read manpages, google for solutions and information about your problems. Build your system up a stage at a time, over the course of months, and when you are finished (of course - you can never finish tweaking and playing with a system :-) ) you will be in a much more powerful and satisfying situation than any quick-install could have given you. I just installed Red Hat Linux 8.0 (which I need for a University project) on my system onto my now triple-booting desktop machine. And, popular though it is, I think it falls into exactly the trap that I am describing. It tries to be all things to all people and automates the installation and configuration of services such that the new administrator ultimately has little or no understanding of what's going on. When you have a system that is being that 'easy', you start to end up with an OS like Windows where the administrator is limited by his configuration tools and is ultimately inconvienced by his convienent operating system. I do worry that some Linux distributions are falling into this trap, and are breading new generations of system administrators who don't have a basic enough understanding of what's going on to properly troubleshoot when things go wrong. And something _always_ goes wrong eventually. :-) Andrew. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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