Tag: w3m
Ubuntu LTS 10.04, a Linux OS at Its Best
by on Jun.21, 2010, under LAMP
Ubuntu does have eBox,which provides a web interface for monitoring and configuring server systems.Unfortunately, this works only via Firefox (not via w3m or links), which means you’ll have to either install X on your server or allow it to run anhttps server specifically for eBox and access that via a desktop machine.
Personally, I’m not enthusiastic about web-based tools; I’d rather seesomething more along YaST lines that can be run on a console on the machinebeing configured. Ubuntu also has Puppet available, but that’s aboutconfiguration file maintenance rather than about providing any kind of configurationmanagement interface.
Another management tool offered is phpMyAdmin,which allows you to administer your MySQL server via a web interface. As witheverything else, it’s a straightforward install, which will reconfigure Apacheas part of the install and even set up your database automatically. Youcan also do this manually if you prefer. Once Apache is installed, if you’re stickingto a console, use links rather than w3m, as phpmyadmin worksbetter with frames. However, in this case you may want to just stay with theMySQL command line, as phpMyAdmin is definitely more usable in a graphicalbrowser. It is useful if you don’t want to have to remember (or lookup) sets of SQL statements.
Conclusions
It’s convenient to have a server install that’s entirely separate from thedesktop install, and while itmay not be as visually slick as the desktop version, that’s not really whatyou want on a server. The install was straightforward; I really liked thepackage collections; and everything was functional on first bootup. Fiveyears of support is good, and all the software installed was fairly up-to-date(within a couple of release points, which is reasonable given the testingcycle needed for a long-term release). Ubuntu provides security updatesregularly, so any security improvements in more recent releases should berolled out to your servers quickly.
One problem I found was that the documentation available online is a bitshaky. In some cases, it still refers to earlier releases, which isn’tvery reassuring. However, Ubuntu is obviously making an effort with itsdocumentation, and it’s easier to find information than it is with some otherdistros.
Overall, Lucid Lynx is an impressive offering and definitely something I’d be happy touse for my own servers. more console-driven system management tools andbetter documentation, would make it an even better option.
Juliet Kemp has been messing around with Linux systems, for financial reward and otherwise, for about a decade. she is also the author of “Linux System Administration Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach” (Apress, 2009).
