[GLLUG] Server Seminar Series Recap

[Lani Meredith]

On Sunday 26 July 2009 12:50:09 pm Clay Dowling wrote:
> Yesterday we had our final seminar in our Server Seminar Series. 
It was
> a long day, but successful, and several of our members were able 
to go
> out with working LAMP servers.
>
> There were also several other lessons learned:
>
> 1. Linux runs best in native mode, rather than emulation. Our
> experiences yesterday with Linux running under emulation were 
not happy.
> They failed for different reasons, but they still failed. There are
> obviously people running Linux under emulation very successfully, 
but it
> appears to take a fair amount of experience to do it well.
>
> 2. Run servers from a server distribution of Linux. I did my
> presentation with a desktop version, and it took a lot of twiddling.  
A
> bunch of other people were also using desktop, and they had the 
same
> twiddling issues.
>
> 3. Install Drupal from sources, not from a distribution system.
> Installation from source went well, but one participant who 
installed
> from his package system had a lot of trouble.
>
> 4. Command line skills are essential. Some members who were 
trying to do
> system administration with a graphic interface to the filesystem 
had
> trouble.  That means we need to make more of an effort at 
promoting the
> command line classes, since we've established that being 
uncomfortable
> with the command line is a significant barrier to entry.
>
> 5. Installing LAMP software isn't trivial. If we run this seminar in the
> future, we need to establish a more straight-forward way to get a 
LAMP
> server ready and install software.  A lot of this goes back to 
lesson
> 1.  And honestly, there might be a case to be made from running 
this on
> FreeBSD or OpenBSD, possibly by providing a machine or 
machines to use
> in the class. BSD is definitely optimized to run as a server.
>
> Clay

The end of the class, where we actually used a LAMP server to do 
something, seemed the most useful to me.  Making the 
configuration tweaks to get Drupal to run is something I'd need an 
instruction page to do (if you weren't available ;) ), but downloading 
and installing modules, making them available, and generating and 
publishing content is something that could be done without frequent 
reference to notes.  But to learn this process, we needed a web 
browser, which isn't included in server installs.  In that sense, it was 
good that the participants mostly brought desktop machines.

If the participants hadn't been able to use their graphical tools at all, 
we might not have gotten as good a turnout, and the presentation 
wouldn't have had such a satisfying finish.

Lani