GUI server tools?

[David Feldman]

On Nov 16, 2004, at 10:17, volvoguy wrote:

>> One thing I notice is missing from Warty is a set of GUI tools like
>> those found in Fedora for administering services - starting and
>> stopping common servers, setting up SMB shares, etc. Are such things
>> available?
>
> They're not available (installed) in Warty. The reason has been
> mentioned here before - simply that desktop end-users shouldn't need
> to be starting and stopping services. Having said that though, I
> believe I also read that a GUI for this task is being researched for
> the future.

I think one could make a case for eliminating some server tools on 
those grounds, but there are services that seem worthwhile on a client 
OS. Users need to share files, so a Samba GUI and, perhaps even better, 
a WebDAV GUI would be helpful. Popular client OSes include some type of 
"personal" Web sharing with a GUI at least to start and stop it (on Mac 
OS X it's called "personal" but is actually just an Apache install). 
Looking at the other services my Mac provides in its GUI: SSH, FTP, 
remote access (i.e. VNC), RPC, printer sharing. I could see leaving out 
RPC and even VNC in a pure client OS, but the rest seem useful.

Perhaps I'm being naive, but why not just use some of the tools from 
Fedora, like the samba config tool and the start/stop services tool?

--Dave