“In the short time that I’ve spent using Ubuntu 5.10, I’ve really come to like it. The installation was painless, all my hardware was detected and configured correctly, package management was easy, and the clean-cut GNOME desktop is terrific.” In addition, here‘s a guide on setting up Ubuntu as a server.
A version of Ubuntu Server was covered earlier on OSNews:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=12326
I setup a server the other day and all went painlessly (as long as you want Apache2). Seems to be a bit more troublesome if you want Apache1.
“and the clean-cut GNOME desktop is terrific.”
I didn’t find it that terrific. Actually nothing really works and the tools made a poor impression on me compared to the KDE counterparts. I suggest people to try Kubuntu in case they like to have a reliable desktop experience.
What doesn’t work, exactly?
I’ve used Ubuntu since hoary on IBM R40 centrino laptop, everything works from hardware to software, perfectly (Well, gotta say S-Video out and suspend doesn’t work (software sleep works) but other than that, all hardware works).
When KDE fanboys use anything gnome, it’s useless but I find your post even more useless. I find both desktops very useful, just prefer gnome.
> I find both desktops very useful
I didn’t made that experience. We are a mid size company, our customers are important to us and we need to deal with them every day and need to keep track of all our steps doing good project planning, keeping track of development and so on.
We have to deal with use cases, project management and so on and the tools existing for GNOME have always been in a poor shape compared to the counterparts found for KDE.
But then I am speaking out my very personal opinion here. If someone believes he can do professional Use Case diagrams using DIA or keep professional track of their projects using stuff like Planner then seriously no one can help them. Maybe they should seek out for a different job. Even Evolution which should be a top corporate trigger don’t get the go for us since it’s permanently crashing.
With the statement on their forums that even Dapper Drake (for enterprise and with 5 years support) won’t come with any proactive security (not even FORTIFY_SOURCE) I won’t recomment Ubuntu for servers.
I say you couldn’t be more wrong.
Some things perfectly working OOTB in the G-version (like hibernating my laptop) are not so easy in the K-version. And everything else just works; it’s just different. Mind you, I still prefer KDE, but this does not make you right.
“I say you couldn’t be more wrong.”
How can I be wrong since Ubuntu and Kubuntu are set up on the same ground system with only difference that the one uses GNOME and the other KDE ? So what hardware technically works with the one has to work the same way with the other. Turning an Ubuntu distro into Kubuntu and vice versa is just one command line entry.
Could someone point me to some info on how to setup adsl in 5.10 using an USB Alcatel adsl modem? It’s _not_ a SpeedTouch (that’s the one model I found info on). According to the USB info the model’s a Dynamite (weird). Installed Breezy on a friend’s system, but without net…
Try this: http://demo.librehwdb.tuxfamily.org/modems//modems_tab.php?lang=en&…
I guess you’ll have to compile it from source.
Thanks, I’ll give it a go tonight
Why would someone set up Ubuntu as a server?
To, uhm…serve stuff? Or was it a trick question?
every time i read a new and updated review of ubuntu, i want to vomit. this distro is about as exciting as tits on a nun.
every time i read a new and updated review of ubuntu, i want to vomit.
Every time I hear somebody whining about his beloved distro not being covered as often as Ubuntu, I want to vomit too.
vomit away, dude….i’m entitled to my opinion.
Hm… tits on a nun.. yummy 🙂
I woud setup ubuntu as a server. Pretty good for a small home server that you may wanting to use a desktop also.
Because they use it on the desktop and don’t know how to use another distro.
Mostly it would be home users who don’t understand that it’s a bad idea.
– Jesse McNelis
It’s not a bad idea.
There is nothing wrong in having an all round computer, working as a workstation as well as a server. It’s not as good as a true server, but it does work quite fine.
And whether you’re using Ubuntu or Kubuntu or whatever doesn’t really matter. Personally I stick to LFS and Win2K3 Server, as an all-round workstation-server
Why do you say that? I had a Gentoo box running as server for years but now I switched to Ubuntu. Ubuntu-server has the same “JustWorks(TM)” feel as the desktop, it’s great.
I’m sure most of that comes from Debian but who cares. It works wonders.
Now in all fairness, the reason I did this with Ubuntu is becase I migrated my services to my workstation. Which happened to have Ubuntu installed.
I’m not sure I understand how this is a bad idea?
Ubuntu Server (different release than Ubuntu desktop) is a great server OS with an extremely small install size of only 400Mb. Sure you might be better off with Debian for some tasks, but Ubuntu has filtered out all the crud I don’t need or want from Debian and they have 18 months of support due to a very, very large development community. I’m using Ubuntu as a Subversion server, Web server, and File server and I couldn’t be happier with it.
So please, could someone actually show how using Ubuntu server is a bad idea (elietests need not reply)
Because you could be using OpenBSD? Kidding aside, almost any distro can be used as a server; it wouldn’t be hard to strip down a normal ubuntu install into a full-blown server, for example.
-bytecoder
I gave up on ubuntu after I realized how unstable apt-get was. I suppose that was for the best, because now I’m a proud user of slackware linux and dropline gnome.
-bytecoder
I gave up on ubuntu after I realized how unstable apt-get was.
Could you please elaborate on that statement. I never felt any instabilities whatsoever with apt-get and considering how long it has been around, I’d find it surprising if there are any severe ones at all…
Well, the only incident I really remember any details about would be the last one, which caused me to switch to slackware. Basically, it managed to completely b0rk my system when dist-upgrading last week. I believe it stopped about half way through or so, and starting it again made things even worse. Now I couldn’t even boot, because doing so would start X, which would crash and stall the computer, so then I had to boot up the live cd and try and fix things, only to find out that I couldn’t even mount my ubuntu partition!
I think apt broke X a few times back, but that was so long ago I can’t even remember it anymore. It might’ve been something else, but who knows.
-bytecoder
If you try again. It’s possible that you ran into the same problem that I did (nvidia + WUXGA screen on DVI).
Check this out:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=73032
but yes, dist-upgrade from hoary to breezy didn’t actually work wonders for me either.
apt-get is stable; your mixing repositories (which is a guess). Mixing different repsoitories can cause breakage on the packages.
Well, if you’re definition of “stable” is “breaks your system,” then I guess I agree with you. Besides, if I understand you correctly, I’m pretty sure I completely replaced ‘hoary’ with ‘breezy’ in /etc/apt/sources.list.
-bytecoder
I think people (trolls, rather) like you just enjoy bashing Ubuntu because of it’s success.
Slackware, RedHat, SUSE are all dead. apt-get is king of package management, etc. Ubuntu is one of the greatest operating systems of our time.
The only thing that I can recommend over Ubuntu is OSX.
I think people (trolls, rather) like you just enjoy bashing Ubuntu because of it’s success.
Geez. If you’re going to go all crazy because people are claiming that ubuntu isn’t really that great, you should probably see a psychiatrist. Honestly, if you don’t like it, don’t read it.
Slackware, RedHat, SUSE are all dead. apt-get is king of package management, etc. Ubuntu is one of the greatest operating systems of our time.
What proof do you have to back those statements up? If you have none, you might as well just leave right now.
-bytecoder
bytecoder why dont you get an account @ OSNEWS. Its the worth the pain considering that you comment so much and have to punch in your name at the bottom of each post.
and in case u rent aware,it’s free
I prefer Ubuntu over RedHat/Fedora too, but let’s not exaggerate. Each distribution has its strength.
* Slackware attracts people who value the KISS philosophy and transparency. The fact that it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles and automatic features is a pro, not a con for Slackware supporters.
* RedHat/Fedora has far better SELinux, Xen, and GCJ support than Ubuntu. Fedora seems to be the proving ground for these technologies. If SELinux, Xen, and GCJ are important to you, or RedHat support is important to you, RedHat/Fedora is your best bet for a distribution.
I have little SUSE experience, but I’m sure there are reasons for using it too.
Each distribution has its strengths. If it doesn’t, it’ll just die off.
Personally, I think that in the long term (10 years), we’ll still have 300 distributions, but they will all share the same source and binary repositories. The benefits of this code sharing and shared security are just too great. The benefits of going it alone aren’t that great once companies and people realize that most distributions contain basically the same stuff. What the 300 distributions will do (whether they be RedHat/SUSE/Mandriva/etc or noncommercial like Debian/Ubuntu/Gentoo/Slackware/etc) will be provide different subsets of the packages or provide different configurations or provide different emphasis on source versus binary or provide packages that are not part of the common repository (e.g. proprietary software or controversial software).
>>>If SELinux, Xen, and GCJ are important to you, or RedHat support is important to you, RedHat/Fedora is your best bet for a distribution.
Not exactly true anymore.
For servers, why would anyone choose Fedora when RHEL (if you have money) or a free version of RHEL (CentOS) is available?
CentOS 4.2 is basically RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 with the RedHat trademarks removed and the latest updates applied.
You forgot that Fedora is now the base of future RHEL (starting for the 4th version) therefore some of the best Fedora features are transfered to RHEL and vice versa.
For servers, why would anyone choose Fedora when RHEL (if you have money) or a free version of RHEL (CentOS) is available?
you better ask both Wikipedia and Sourceforge about that one because they use Fedora as server.
I have seen myself small businesses using Fedora as server because they are attracted to new technologies.
Because you could be using OpenBSD? Kidding aside, almost any distro can be used as a server; it wouldn’t be hard to strip down a normal ubuntu install into a full-blown server, for example.
I find it pretty tasteless to mention OpenBSD and Ubuntu much less making a comparison.
Wait, what? I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
-bytecoder
Well, maybe Ubuntu is not the best server OS out there just don’t tell that to my file server…
For servers that require security:
1. Don’t use BIND. Use an alternative with a proven security track-record such as djbdns. Beware that binaries produced by modified djbdns cannot be redistributed, only the unmodified source code can be freely distributed (so any 3rd-party patches are usually patch files that need to be applied and compiled–this is the same idiotic license as qmail, which has an unbeatable security track-record). You can avoid these hassles and use any of a dozen totally free DNS service providers like zoneedit. Just google for “free dns” and do your homework before choosing one.
2. Install and run bastille-linux which is available as a package for most distros. It combines a series of multiple choice questions, perfect level of detail about each choice & consequences, and then secures your OS based on your choices. Doing ‘apt-get install bastille’ and just going with the default choices takes less than a minute–but I recommend reading each screen since it is a good security tutorial. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
3. For Apache2 servers, install mod_security. It doesn’t make any sense not to use this fantastic free security defense. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
4. If your website is attacked by competitors or people who dislike your content, then install mod_evasive too (it offers good protection against small denial-of-service attacks and is easy to configure).
5. Proftpd is a good ftp server. But if you are paranoid about security, then choose vsftpd which is well-respected and known for solid security.
6. Postfix is a good compromise between convenience and security. Qmail has the best security but the idiotic license requires you to apply patches and compile the source code instead of using prepackaged binaries. Exim is the most convenient for Debian and Debian-based distros but it falls in 3rd place when it comes to security track-record, behind qmail (1st) and postfix (2nd). If you decide to try qmail and don’t mind the horrible license that requires you to compile, then go with netqmail 1.05 or later which contains several patches to the original qmail–and consider using vpopmail-bin package which allows virtual email domains. These 3 email solutions are far better than sendmail which has a horrible security history like bind.
7. Sshd tips: Don’t run sshd on the default port. Don’t allow root user to login. Create a new group and only allow users belonging to that group to login via ssh. There’s more you can do but doing these minimal steps are generally sufficient.
8. Consider using portsentry to temporarily blacklist ip addresses that try to connect to commonly exploited ports such as telnet.
9. Use logcheck which will automatically alert you via email of any suspicious activity detected in the log files.
Now, THAT are what I consider great advices. I´ve worked on a mid-sized ISP and we used to follow most of these recommendations (BIND being the only exception, but we managed to keep it working in a secure fashion, e.g. chrooted it! :-)). And regarding Apache, I still prefer version 1.3.x.
And you´re right: Qmail is a PITA to maintain, even though it is the best MTA around IMHO.
Cheers,
DeadFish Man
It would be nice if the founder of Ubuntu Linux would consider supporting KDE even more beyond Kubuntu. It looks like he was very impressed by KDE’s integration, polish and functionality.
http://dot.kde.org/1120585462/