RE: [PLUG] Newbie

["Bob Razler" <bob@razler.com>]

Bill:

	Thanks.


-----Original Message-----
From: plug-admin@lists.phillylinux.org
[mailto:plug-admin@lists.phillylinux.org] On Behalf Of Bill Jonas
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 11:04 AM
To: plug@lists.phillylinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Newbie

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 09:04:28AM -0500, Bob Razler wrote:
> Which distro do you recommend?  Linux?  BSD?

Well, I'm partial to Debian, available at http://www.debian.org/.  The
main reason I recommend it is because of the packaging system, which
provides benefits such as easy package installation, easy remote
administration, the ability to easily upgrade your entire system without
rebooting (excepting the kernel, which almost[1] always requires a
reboot), timely security fixes which are easy to install, and an upgrade
process which doesn't overwrite your software configuration files
without asking you first.  And there's no need to download hundreds of
megabytes' worth of CD images; you can get started by downloading a few
floppy disk images and install only what you need from the 'net.

I'd be lying if I said there weren't any downsides.  The installation
isn't the most newbie-friendly, although it's certainly manageable.  The
cycle between stable releases tends to be long, although it's rock-solid
when it's released.  This means that at any given time, the software in
the stable version tends to lag behind other distributions, although you
can easily install newer packages from the "testing" or "unstable"
versions (basically, public betas) or compile one of the newer packages
for the stable version with one or two commands (depending on your
preference).  There tend not to be the graphical configurators found in
other distributions, although the default configurations generally have
sensible defaults.  There are configuration tools for some of the more
important pieces of software, though, and some of the tools available
for other distributions are packaged and available.

Whichever distribution you go with, you'll probably find that many
people on this list use it and would be able to help (assuming one of
the major distributions).

> Can you recommend a good book or a good source of information on
> setting up a web server?   I already have learned how to build,
> install and configure (basically) Apache on SuSE and BSD.

O'Reilly publishes Apache: The Definitive Guide.  I've never read it, so
I can't comment on it.  Online documentation is available at
http://httpd.apache.org/.

> My real problem is that I would like to know how to configure Apache
> and the OS to allow for remote editing of the web pages.

I've never done this myself, but I did a quick search and came up with
http://www.webdav.org/, which leads to http://www.webdav.org/mod_dav/.
There is a Debian package available for this program, by the way.  (If
this doesn't fit your needs, the search I used was
http://www.google.com/search?q=apache+remote+web+page+editing)

Hope that helps.

[1] http://www.scyld.com/products/beowulf/software/monte.html, but this
is almost like a reboot anyway.

-- 
Bill Jonas    *    bill@billjonas.com    *    http://www.billjonas.com/

Developer/SysAdmin for hire!   See http://www.billjonas.com/resume.html

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