Topic: SME alternative?

[bugme]

Dont get me wrong.

I have deployed e-smith/SME servers in many locations over the last 3+ years.

But I think most of you will agree, that the recent turmoil, and lack of progress/updates for us 'users' who dont need any 'political' issues, to clog the progress of this great solution.

I am looking forward to the centos version, as i ran centOS on my xeon EMT64 server for awhile.

Contribs from Swerts-knudsen and dungog, make the platform alive and well, and superior to some of the commercial solutions available.

ClamAV and Spamassassin scripts from swerts and dungog have been wonderful. I think i have some of the most protected businesses in my marketplace. Others on MS servers, are busy signing up for remote spam hosting services and other less than ideal solutions, since they dont appreciate what we can do with F/OSS technology, when applied correctly.

But I am a provider of networking solutions to my clients, and I need to always look out for them.

Is Clark Connect a good alternative, for some clients that may be better served by it, than by SME?

Or even for all my current SME users, to be migrated to Clark?

Anybody with hands on with Clark Connect would be appreciated.

Also any others, such as netmax, or similar...

Thanks.

[bugme]

whoops.

i forgot to provide the link/article.
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl/05/30/2142221

[BoZz]

Hi,

I agree Contribs/E-Smith is way behind on a major release but there are plenty of patch's / upgrades to be found on this site to keep things going? I have used Clark Connect and other but I still believe Contribs to be the best package all round. Let's hope we see a new release soon that installs and runs on new hardware. Don't give just yet, the new crew are doing well and I believe we will see positive change over the next few months?

Brett

[cydonia]

Yeh I hope SME is kept active and continues to grow.  It is one of the finest distros IMO and rekindled my faith in linux .

[guest22]

I agree Contribs/E-Smith is way behind on a major release...

Next to the fact that developers are working like horses to port the current stable release of SME Server to a CentOS base, what do you need?

SME Server has a very clear philosophy and targeted audience. Keeping close to major release is not one of them. Stability, security and easy of use for the specific audience is.

[calisun]

All the people that are complainig here, have you given any type of contribution to this project? Have you ever thought that the project might grow faster if we all contributed to it?
It is easy to complain, not so easy to do actual work.
If you want to get a product that has regular updates and support, get yourself Microsoft or Macintosh server. This product is FREE, community based. So at least you can do is contribute, not just complain.
PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

[albatroz]

Clarkconnect is good and easy to manage as a firewall/IDS and VPN server. For other uses as email/web server, SME IS better

[BoZz]

It's easy to read the first two lines and not the rest, but everyone to there own? I wasn't complainig justing replying to a post with the facts and finishing the post in a positive way looking forward.

CYA,

Brett

[bugme]

I found another possible alternative today:

http://www.efw.it/wiki/index.php/Screenshots
http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/05/06/13/182252.shtml

What do you think?

Has anyone experience with a version of it?

Thanks.

[bugme]

dude/dudette, dont go getting an attitude.

we all just trying to discuss and understand.
u wanna get upset, go in the toilet and push. push hard.

some of us contribute by coding, some by donations, some by spreading the word, and growing the base, and the project. i sure didnt see you mention how you CONTRIBUTE, except to hunt and peck your ATTITUDE.

I cannot code, so i have donated a few hundred u.s. dollars, and i have setup a dozen businesses with sme.
I have even written articles online about sme, and sent mailings promoting it.

What state/country are you from?

[duncan]

I found another possible alternative today:

http://www.efw.it/wiki/index.php/Screenshots
http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/05/06/13/182252.shtml

What do you think?

Has anyone experience with a version of it?

Thanks.

What do I think - Its a firewall distro.

With respect to Clarkconnect - Its not bad - however SME has it all over CC in terms of Mail and web serving.

[azche24]

With respect to Clarkconnect - Its not bad - however SME has it all over CC in terms of Mail and web serving.

Yes. And cc does not compare to SME in terms of cost and flexibility! I did a "short-compare" frome the user view just a few minutes ago:
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=27768.0

SME is somehow unique, and that's good. Compared even to a hardware firewall (i just tried a small linksys router at home) SME looses in power consumption and security, because the user-databases are on the server. But no other distro has firewall, mailserver, webserver AND full samba plus addons on one hardware.

Of course i could implement that by separation of services: One server for Firewalling, one Mailserver, one ...

But Power-Consumption alone would be more than my complete "it-budget" in a SOHO or Home environment. In germany we calculate the annual costs of a server-pc with the watt of power-conversion in EURO/US-$. For example a usual P III PC has 250 Watt and about 150 - 250 $/EUR annually only for the power. You can by a lot of webhosting for that!

And backup plus configuration in one place is simply nice! The only "better-SME" i can imagine would be something like a HW-Router with Mail and very little filesharing on it with no noise and a power consumption lower than 50 Watt. That would be it!

[CharlieBrady]

Clarkconnect is good and easy to manage as a firewall/IDS and VPN server.

I notice that ClarkConnect have used my PPP RPMs (required for PPTP VPN), and have removed the changelog entries which identify the work is mine. Thanks guys!

[azche24]

I notice that ClarkConnect have used my PPP RPMs (required for PPTP VPN), and have removed the changelog entries which identify the work is mine. Thanks guys!

Ho, that is ugly! GPL is not FREEWARE, i think. Why does nobody take these guys to court?

Messing up GPL for me is a reason for dropping products at least. So i will drop cc right now!

[judgej]

All the people that are complainig here, ...blah blah... PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

Please - this gets nobody anywhere expect people on the defensive. No-one is complaining. We talk. We listen. Some people contribute technical expertise. Some people contribute business knowledge. Other people contribute just by being users, and keeping the distibution alive (what would be the point without users?).

I can tell you one thing: Open Source never got anywhere by people either putting up or shutting up.

-- Jason