Hello, Having played around with Bacula since 2.4.1 I would dare to express my general impressions here.
Bacula has been known as "not too easy to deploy and configure" for long time and it is this fact that slows down Bacula's adoption around the world. There are also great fragments in the documentation and howtos, but much more are needed. Generally, providing a broader set of ready-made packages (more platforms supported) would also increase the product market penetration, I believe. So the "set up qt 4.3.4 exactly" does sound "counterproductive" ;-) IMO. Specifically about bat, maybe it is worth building bat static with "suitable qt libraries" if it is technically possible? I understand that it would result into pretty large binaries. Just some examples of documentation points that would be worth improving: * How is it reasonable to manage backup of laptops (that can be present or missing in the LAN throughout a day)? * What is a reasonable to-disk-only backup strategy? There is one example in the documentation but it is still pretty much tape-oriented. * How can I construct a fileset that contains the following files in "DOS wildcard notation": "C:/Documents and Settings/*/Local Settings/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/*", i.e. "for all users, back up whatever is under Firefox Profiles", but nothing extra? It is not so trivial. * How can I make a "virtual full" *easily*? (in 3.0, it required another pool etc, but actually it should have been "easy" for the administrator instead; there is improvement in 5.0, but still no "easy description"). * Installation of the database (postgres) user fails under root by default, at least on rhel (there is no such database user defined by default), one should understand postgresql a little at least to get over the issue. * ... add according to your taste. Concerning Bacula Systems' product (i.e. one meant to be *slod* -- in contrast to free/open Bacula), let us consider an example of MS Windows clients -- what's missing from the "ease of use" point of view. Current binary installers are .exe files and to get through in somewhat-bigger-than-soho scenarios MSI installers are required. Installer should support silent deployment or, at least (if we admit that bacula configuration files have to be unique for each client), proper silent upgrade. The current exe does allow silent upgrade from 3.0.2 to 3.0.3a with an *undocumented* switch "/S" on Windows XP -- but that's all. No silent/auto upgrade on Vista/W7, as I understand, no supported silent upgrade to 5.0.0 (configuration file locations changed), no bacula-fd service auto-recovery settings. Failure to back up efs-encrypted files (that is not reflected in documentation; yes, warnings come in the process of backup, but...) will probably cost lots to the company (if the customers discover this issue themselves -- attempting to recover after disaster, or, in the best case, just after buying the product but before a disaster). No Vista+ "tray icon" is more a cosmetic issue here. The lower we can get the administrator's entry level the wider adoption can Bacula achieve -- resulting into more corporate customers get it in (not only directly but also via "advices of others" -- since the "others" would become larger). Steep learning curve is no good (although there were lots of old-style-unix/linux "gurus" that believed it *was* ;-). Regards, Alex Ehrlich On 03.02.2010 12:57, Kern Sibbald wrote: > Hello, > > Bat: > > We have received a number of problem reports and bugs about building and > running bat, and unfortunately our documentation was insufficient, which is > hopefully now corrected. > > Bat is built with the Qt packages for doing the GUI. I have worked with a lot > of different GUI packages (Sun/Solaris, Mac, Windows, OS/2, wxWidgits, X, > Qt3, Qt4, ...) and I prefer Qt4 over all the other ones. However, it is very > version dependent, which is a bit of a pain. As a consequence, the only way > to get a stable working version of Bat is to build it on the version of Qt > where we have built and tested it. That version is Qt 4.3.4 (default on > Ubuntu 8.04). > > So to get bat to build correctly, we have released a depkgs-qt that contains > the source code for Qt 4.3.4, and if you are trying to build Bat, either you > should load the Qt 4.3.4 binaries on your system, or download our depkgs-qt > release from Source Forge and built Qt 4.3.4 there. Building from depkgs-qt > does not install Qt on your system, it is just used in the Bat build. > > We have updated the manuals (5.0.0 and 5.1.x-development) on the web site to > have more detailed instructions on building Bat. Hopefully this will resolve > any and all problems you may be having. > > Sorry for the inconvenience. > > Please see: > > http://www.bacula.org/5.0.x-manuals/en/main/main/Installing_Bacula.html#SECTION001250000000000000000 > > for details. > > ============================== > > ActionOnPurge: --- Please do not use!!! > > Action on purge is a new directive in 5.0.0, which permits automatically > truncating your volumes with the volume is purged. Unfortunately, this new > code is not very robust and in some cases can lead to problems. We strongly > recommend that you avoid using this directive. > > We are rewriting the implementation for version 5.0.1 where it will be a very > useful feature. > > Best regards, > > Kern > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation > Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business > Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts > Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com > _______________________________________________ > Bacula-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-devel > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ Bacula-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-devel
