Right... well I've read the bugs. I've tried all of the hacks. The bottom line is unless you're hands on you're not going to find a solution here right now. If you need an easy solution right now and have a network depending on it and you're not comfortable getting your hands dirty in the scripting, templates, and linux in general, then there are options out there that work.
This isn't a slight against SME. I've been using SME for years and try to contribute when I can. I understand that there are a fair amount of gurus on here who can get their hands dirty and work out problems. But I'm am willing to bet that the larger portion of users are Joes in small office situations who simply need something that works and don't have the budget to buy Microsoft servers to manage what is essentially an authentication service.
I still have 2 x SME running email and firewalling functions on my network. They have been working 99% flawlessly for about 5-6 years at this point and kudos for that. I now have 2 Win7Pro users and more on the way on my network so I tested eBox and ClearOS and participated in their forums and bug trackers during that time and am now happily running a ClearOS domain controller to manage my 90% Windows LAN.
Setup was a breeze and two tests of failure and restore went off well enough to make the decision easily. Their roadmap includes a PDC/BDC backup but with a Virtual machine on standby and routine backup files put onto my network I don't think a BDC is even necessary... so Kudos to Clear Foundation for this solution.
-E
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