Topic: Future of SME

[Anonymous]

A thought -- not a demand -- not a rant -- not even really a suggestion...

But, if the development platform migrated to Debian, it might make for a more diverse user base.

The reason I say this is that esmith was the first distribution I used to set up a Linux firewall/gateway router in, I believe, 1999, after paying for media and documentation, but no support.

It was great, and one of the great things about it was that you could, with some workarounds, size the hardware for whatever task you wanted to deploy emsith for.  After setting up a P120 at work, I used esmith on an ISA 486 and an external modem at home (there were workarounds for ISA motherboards, etc.).

By switching to Debian, this hardware compatibility would all be opened up again. Ease of install obviously requires the new user to stick with PCI motherboards, and reliability issues might dictate leaving the venerable 486 behind, but by exploiting Debian's lower machine requirements, the distribution would open the doors to more trial, experimentation, and use.

A Debian based server could potentially make a Pentium 75 with 16 MB RAM a viable option (the old box I used to run esmith on was a 486DX 66 MHz with 16 MB and a 500 MB hard drive). For many people, curious to try a distribution, it is easier to come up with something like that, than to scrounge up a dedicated test box that meets, for example, Fedora Core2 hardware requirements.

This would also make the distribution more competitive with "firewall only" projects, for those who are interested primarily in firewalling and NAT, while not diminishing its value to those looking for a full blown solution for a small business with 150 users.

Again, just a thought and no demand, but migrating to Debian would make it all more accessible to a broad cross section ranging from the home user to the 5 seat third world startup to the well established 500 employee small manufacturing firm in New Jersey.  In addition, it would lower the bar to participation by a larger cross section of developers and bug testers.

Colin Mattoon
Lewiston, Idaho (U.S.A.)

[azche24]

In addition, it would lower the bar to participation by a larger cross section of developers and bug testers.

Yes, Colin,

though i am not experienced with debian: If debian would be able to handle even low-end hardware (if!) it always would be my choice instead of RH.

I liked linux first for little hardware demands. It just was faster than win on my low-end PCs, which we also use for achieving low energy consumption and less heat in an office environment. E-Smith is still much more safe than a similar windoze server. But the smashing argument for linux servers (besides the license fees) will always be a low-end hardware approach.

And even my home-server now needs 256 MB RAM + more CPU-Power than this 350 MHZ PII PC from 1998 can give....

[EnglishRob]

I like the idea of using RPMs myself.  I'm not an expert on Linux, I've played around with it on and off, but I like the idea with SME Server that it just works.

My SME server is running version 6 IIRC, and it is working nicely on an Athlon 800 with 256MB ram.

With hardware being so cheap nowadays, would having to support anything lower than say a P2-300 with 64MB or so memory really be a big issue?

I've bought components like P2 CPU's, motherboards and memory cheaply enough on eBay and even low end Duron's aren't that expensive anymore, or for the low power option whats wrong with the VIA Mini ITX motherboards?

Just my 2p.

Rob

[EnglishRob]

Just one niggly problem I find with SME server at the moment is creating template files.

I like the web interface, but I would love a nice easy way of creating/editing these template files.

That is, unless there is any easy to understand howto's on doing out there?

Rob

[wellsi]

Just one niggly problem I find with SME server at the moment is creating template files.

I like the web interface, but I would love a nice easy way of creating/editing these template files.

That is, unless there is any easy to understand howto's on doing out there?

Rob

Although straying off the subject for this thread...

What problems do you have with the template files? Is it the concept or the actual syntax?

Some constructive criticism is this area would be good so that we can improve the documentation.

I think that there are no HowTos however there are the pages in the documentation section.

[EnglishRob]

Okay, I think its the actual concept of it all, or maybe I'm just that I can't get my head around Perl?

I don't have many problems with RedHat/Fedora etc with their config files, it seems to be the same as pretty much every other Linux I have come across.

I kinda see the advantage of having the config files separated into chunks so just adding a file rather than editing config files gives the same results.

I just wish there was some sort of editor of sorts which allowed me to create files with all the nessicary bits in it without having to read through other config files to try and understand how they work.

I must admit, I probably should spend a bit more time looking at them, I just can't seem to find the documentation on them, and what I did have (I think was in a PDF), wasn't too clear to me.

All in all though, SME server works nicely for what I use it for, and its even better considering there aren't any hefty licence costs.

Rob