> From: Steve Bush [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Here is a summary of the alternatives I have for my 4 site (but growing)
> WAN:
You left out one of the obvious choices for some of the servers: a
current stock Mandrake or RedHat distribution. SMEserver doesn't
add any new functionality to these systems and in fact removes quite
a bit, some intentionally, some just because the other distributions
have evolved since the SME snapshot. Mandrake, for example, is pretty
amazing about auto-detecting hardware and will install on your choice
of several journelled filesystems and has the new CUPS printing system.
SME gives you a canned setup that saves a lot of time if it is exactly
what you need and gets in the way if it isn't. I like SME and don't
intend this to sound like a rant against it, but managing 'bare' Linux
by editing a few files isn't all that horrible and the other distributions
have improved their tools too.
Large installations might come out ahead with something like Ganymede
as a front end but I think it should be possible with only a few changes
to use an SMEserver's LDAP and/or Samba as a network authentication
server. Then you could add users in one place (or at least manage passwords
there) and other systems (SME or not) could provide other services for
the same set of users. Maybe it would be even easier to toss an 'rsync
over ssh' into the e-smith tools to keep the configurations of a small
set of machines updated.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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