Topic: newbie questions...

[Dennis]

Hi everyone

a friend told me to use the SME for my very first linux server, and I did, so far so good.. but I have some questions, here goes:

Is it possible to make it so that when users log ind to their mail they have to type

user@domain.com/password

How do i get the DNS server working so that I can add my own subdomains

as it is now i have the DNS hosted on a remote server and ahve to mail them everytime i need a subdomain, I wuold like to be able to do this myself, using SME. Is this possible and if how ??

and last but not least, is it possible to get x windows exa a KDE desktop working on the SME, so that i can use the server itself for administartion via a browser. and not a commandline ??


Hope you understand all my questions, otherwise just ask.. I really like this server and would like to continue using it, since i Think webmin and that sort is way to advanced for me... I*M A NEWBIE to linux ...

[Ray Mitchell]

RE:
> and last but not least, is it possible to get x windows exa a KDE desktop
> working on the SME, so that i can use the server itself for administartion via a
> browser. and not a commandline ??

You can access the server manager via web browser from a Windows workstation
www.yourdomain.com/server-manager
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Dennis]

Yeah I know Ray, but i would like to use the server itself, and thats the reason for the question

[robert]

The server has its own text-based browser lynx that you can use to access the webmanager from the server. This can be done either from the bash prompt by typing lynx and the webmanager url or from the admin console on the server.
But I'm sure this is all documented in the manual. Not sure about your other questions.
HTH,
Robert

[Dennis]

ok, i'll refrase the question.

is it possible to install KDE desktop on the SME server, so that the server can be used as a desktop computer as well ?

sorry about the other frase, bad I know.

[robert]

Dennis wrote:
>

> is it possible to install KDE desktop on the SME server, so
> that the server can be used as a desktop computer as well ?
>
Short answer: no
Long answer: you may be able to, but it would certainly be more trouble than it's worth. If you want X, use a different distro. If OTOH you want a really nice server distro, use SME.

[Graham]

I have found that SME works even on an old P166 with 16Meg RAM !!!

Use an old box as your server and your nice fast wrokstation as . . . .

A Wokstation !

You may find X / Nix slower than Win on same hardware BUT certainly
the kernel is more stable than Win.

I have had X crash out on a terminal session and then just logged in
on another terminal (Alt+Fn) and all carried on as usual !

With Win its definitley a re-boot !

[Ray Mitchell]

Yes I agree with Graham, far better to leave your server alone, except for occasional admin needs which can mostly be done from a workstation browser anyway. This will give you a nice stable server that you won't crash because of desktop usage problems.

I have even used a 486/66 with 16Mb RAM with a 2.5Gb hard disk, and it works quite OK as a server with 4.1.2 and 5.1.2 (It is still my test machine). Note that it did take nearly 2 hours to load the sme software and you do need to manually set up the network card but there is a HOWTO on that. Unless you have lots of users running Webmail or other server based applications, you can get away with a very low end server configuration. More RAM (say 32 or 64 Mb minimum) does seem better though. My present config of P133/2.5G/32Mb RAM runs nicely as a email and web server, and has been OK as a file/print server for 8 users (with a bigger hard disk in it).

Ray Mitchell

[Jon]

Ive got a couple of things I want to run.
The first is direct connect, so I can do nasty file sharing with my main, noisy pc turned off, and irrespective of what OS I want to run on it.
I havent found a direct connect client, so it looks like I have to install x on it.

The second one is xtunes.

It doesnt seem like it should be too hard.
Is it possible to install KDE without xfree86? I want to run the x server on my windows box, and leave my server headless.