Use Ubuntu 8.04 LTS as a MTA gateway

[Markus Schönhaber]

Peter Sørensen:

> I am quite new to this list and trying to figure out where to put questions
> related to setting up a Mail Gateway server based on postfix, amavisd-new, sophie, clam...

This list is for "Ubuntu user technical support". So, if you're setting
up a mail server on Ubuntu (especially if using Ubuntu-provided
packages), questions about this IMO are on topic here. Just ask your
question(s).

> We've been running this service on a redhat RHEL platform until now but would like 
> to change, primarily because updates on the RHEL is'nt good - often forcing us to compile
> all software from source.
> 
> What I've seen so far - the update mechanism is quite good in Ubuntu. The packages are quite
> knew so this seems fairly OK.

The packages are generally quite new when the Ubuntu version they're
provided for is quite new. Chances are, you won't get a newer version
(security fixes aside) of a package during the lifetime of the specific
Ubuntu version. OTOH there's a new Ubuntu version every six months.
There are exceptions, though. For example: The postfix version from the
Dapper (released 2006) backports repository is newer than the postfix
version for Hardy (released 2008).

Depending on what exactly the reasons were that forced you to compile
stuff from source on RHEL, you may be better off with Ubuntu - or not.

> I've already put a question concerning the gcc 4.2.4 compiler/linker but
> ain't sure this is the right place to put it.

A question about gcc seems to be, in general, on topic here. Whether or
not this list is the best place to ask a specific question is another
matter, though. For example: without having checked thoroughly the
Ubuntu-provided postfix package doesn't seem to differ too much from the
upstream version (SASL configuration in /etc/postfix/sasl instead of
/usr/lib/sasl2 is one difference that comes to mind). So, if you're
having a question about postfix configuration in general, you might be
better off asking in postfix-users than here.

-- 
Regards
  mks