Controlling servers (e.g. apache, samba)

[Eric Dunbar]

On 05/02/07, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> Eric Dunbar wrote:
>
> > No problem at all. I've built enough things from scratch but I
> > honestly don't think I've ever installed from a .deb before... lots of
> > .rpms into YellowDog but never .debs into Ubuntu (up to this point
> > I've never tried to do anything "real" with Ubuntu... I've mostly
> > relied on Synaptic ;-)).
>
> In which case you have been using .debs

Ok ;-P. I've never actually gone to the effort of downloading one and
installing it "manually" -- it's always been care of Synaptic,
aptitude or apt-get.

> > What surprises me is that WebMin is not in the official repositories
> > -- it's such a useful program.
> >
> > I haven't decided on my partitioning scheme given that I spent the
> > whole of 2 seconds deciding upon a partitioning scheme with my current
> > server that has haunted me for MORE THAN TWO years.
>
> 1 for Windows, 1 for Linux root, 1 for swap, remainder for LVM.

0 for Windows. The Windows install will exist independently on a
separate install. I want to keep things as simple as possible -- one
drive = one OS.

However, someone suggested /boot as its own partition. Can this help
me avoid the MBR/Windows boot loader/GRUB mess that I've created on my
machine at the moment?

(I refuse to go ahead and reformat everything until I manage to
recover one of the two Windows installs that currently exist (one on
each drive) -- I want to know that it's possible before I plunge feet
first into the icy waters of the Windows world... PS Windows really,
REALLY sucks (and, I just thought it was the interface and application
design philosophy that sucked)).

> I make the Windows & Linux partitions minimal, then put all the parts of the
> Linux filesystem that don't need to be on the root partition in the LVM
> (/usr, /var, /home & /tmp - /opt would be there if I had anything in it).
> The LVM is very flexible, so that you're not wedded to it.
>
> If I didn't need to keep the Windows partition just so that I could
> demonstrate to Dell that their hardware doesn't work even in the original
> config, I'd scrap that, too, and just run Windows in a VMWare disk image.

Hmm. Time to read up on LVM when I have time -- well, ok, so I
procrastinated for a few minutes -- I don't think the LVM is a viable
solution for me. I want to keep the server running in a virtual
machine (VMware) and I suspect that using LVMs will not work very
nicely with the virtual machine for sharing purposes (unless I can
install the LVM software into the VM and have it manage various
partitions/drives inside the VM).

Eric.