Topic: SME v SBS

[richardc]

I've read a lot of posts here praising sme's virtues over ms equivalents..and it does sound great.
So AFTER I set it up.. what are the gotchas? from those of you who have lived with SME for some time,

  what practical issues do you face in a live environment (compared to sbs)?
  what can't sme do that sbs can? (and vice versa)
  how do you get around (adapt to) these..challenges?

i ask the above in good faith seeking the experience of sysadmins who have lived with this distro. I trust this is the correct forum.
regards,
RichardC.

[cool34000]

Hi there !

Could you be more precise about what you're looking for...
That means :
- how many users
- what you will need (what services, which softwares)
- the environement (and it's future)
- your knowledge in both side (linux vs microsoft)

SBS is intended to be implemented in really small entreprise and is really not done for any evolution. It's really a light version of M$'s server but with a lot of functions installed by default... It could be a good solution if some softwares of yours cannot be implemented on linux environement...

SME will be more easy to install and to setup... It's really done for web services. A lot of functions of SBS are already installed just like mail service (and more secured by default as it has a builtin antivirus and antispam), but if you're not comfortable with linux this could be more difficult than SBS : if the thing you want to change is not in the server-manager, you'll have to "do it your-self" in command line.

My little experience showed me that both world could be merged, I'm running both M$ server and SME (but not the SBS version, it really sucks).
I have an active directory on my windows server as it's really more powerfull and all the enterprise softwares (plus some services as terminal server). For the web services, I use SME, it does really great and I also replaced my router by SME. I installed a few contribs on it to be more powerfull just like web filtering (dansguardian). Now I really cannot live without both servers !

[richardc]

thanks for the reply "cool34000".
I suppose what i'm wondering is can SME be a complete replacement for ms.
I'm looking at a small office, around 15 users or so.

software...at the moment: internal email (w/ spam), intranet, www, file,print. Probably I will be asked for network/server installs of myob officeXp quicken, if not now then later... I don't want to make promises I can't keep!

I have used samba before, but not AD.

[cool34000]

A little warning about MYOB, it looks like it does'nt have a LINUX version... If this software must be installed on your server, you could be going into troubles ! (I just checked here). Some softwares just need their databases to be shared, so this must be checked.

M$ Office and quicken are workstations softwares so this as nothing to deal with SME or SBS !


SME is able to do all you're looking for (and more) :
- mail
- intranet
- www
- files and printers sharing
No problem here !

[richardc]

thankyou cool34000,
is it the Active Directory component you particularly like in Ms ? (what can't you do with samba?)

What other things can't be done with SME?

The mail config in SME is really great. Sounds like sbs isn't so easy?

thanks for the benefit of your experience. I was hoping others would chime in too...
regards,
Richard.

[girkers]

I have found from my own personal experience is that one feature that SBS has over SME is syncing with PDAs. As SBS includes exchange it is easily configured to allow PDAs to sync Outlook data via any means. Until the Horde framework is easy to install and provides a means for Outlook (and Outlook compatible devices) to sync easily SBS will win in this environment, unfortunately.

[cool34000]

Well, first of all, I know better M$ than SAMBA !

Then because there are only few parameters you can choose in the server-manager. So SME is more simple about AD, but I guess more actions coulb be taken under the command line to add some usefull functionnalities of M$'s AD.

And the last reason is because M$ is better than anyone to manage M$ environnement... Just an example, about the policies... They can be managed in an MMC and have plenty parameters you can force (of course if your workstations are under Windows). Easyer management... And more adapted to Windows workstations...

Well now, these are advanced functionnalities and you might not need even one of them, SME is easyer and quicker to configure and do not require a lot of knowledge. It just works ! This is what SME is intended to be (all the good work has been done by dev team, you just have to use it !) Quick, simple and faster

Exchange is really hard to configure and has plenty options (a lot are useless !) but it is fully integrated in AD... Once again, SME is easyer and no further configuration is needed...

[gbentley]

Oops, dont know what happened there ?

[gbentley]

Sage software is a UK company who produce accounting applications and over the years they have grown to dominate the market place - Sage has become almost the 'De Facto' standard for UK accountants. This is a bad situation in my opinion, however ....

I have several clients who are accountants and who run Sage and pay for a 'networked version' - this is a really a simple file share for centralised data and client software looks to the network path.

Current and past version of SME have worked in this scenario.

Some time ago Sage software bought a Contact Management software called ACT! - I think it used to belong to Symantec, and some else previous to that. Anyway, as usual with most office apps ACT! got bigger and bigger all the time and it now installs a 'local version' of SQL server on each client machine even though the data for the network version resides on a network drive.

After spending many hours trying all sorts of tricks to get ACT! to run with data residing on SME ibay I gave up. ACT! 'knows' SME is not Windows and everything I tried failed.

Support for ACT! is very sketchy indeed (Sage Accounting support is going the same way, surprise surprise!) and whilst you can occasionally talk to a sensible tech most back off as soon as you mention Linux. Application support is even worst, its such a hotch potch of departments etc.

So, I have ended up with SME for everything but ACT! and put a small box with W2K on for up to 10 ACT! users max, more than that and you are forced to go with M$ SQL server on SBS or 2003S.

Another accounting application worth mentioning is IRIS which is more of an accounants practice management software. IRIS will currently run on SME but the updates wont. You have to move all the data to a Winstation, perform the update there, then move it back to the SME again. IRIS tech say off the record that they know they have some customers using Linux but dont officially support it, in fact they discourage it ... "If we cant reproduce the problem we cant help you" (so get a Linux box then and make a start - some hope) In any case IRIS have officially announced that in the next year to two years IRIS will require M$ SQL and wont work without it. So, pay up or go elsewhere. When you look at the IRIS site now there is M$ Partnership logo's on it !!!

Out of interest it might be useful to have a list somewhere of different apps people have gotten working, any special tweaks on SME etc.

Just a thought ...

[william_syd]

So, I have ended up with SME for everything but ACT! and put a small box with W2K on for up to 10 ACT! users max, more than that and you are forced to go with M$ SQL server on SBS or 2003S.

Could you run vmware server on sme and put w2k on that ?

[smeusr]

[quote author=gbentley
Out of interest it might be useful to have a list somewhere of different apps people have gotten working, any special tweaks on SME etc.

Just a thought ...
[/quote]

Out of interest, has the list of successful apps running on SME been put together?

thanks.