server distributions

[David Kramer]

Tom Metro wrote:
> One example of this is the way they configure apache2 sites using 
> /etc/apache2/sites-available/ and /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ 
> directories. It's a good organization scheme, but you won't find 
> information on it at apache.org.

Sometimes "standards-conformant is better than "better".

> What's really needed is a package-specific wiki, tied-in to the web UI 
> for browsing packages. That way for any given package in the 
> distribution, you know exactly where to look for the 
> distribution-specific notes.

You mean like /usr/share/doc/*, which has the documentation for almost 
1,000 packages on the FC6 install on my server?  Like that?

> You're paying a price in the long run by forgoing your distribution's 
> packaging system. Once configured, installing updates should be fairly 
> painless. Not entirely the same can be said for the tar distribution.

Amen.  One of the things I'm looking forward to in F7 is a single 
unified repository.  But all distros have problems once you start 
installing a lot of stuff from tarball.  Even when it works, it's hard 
to maintain. keeping track of what came from where.

>> With the "official" distro,  I  know where  everything  gets
>> installed  and what files need attention.

rpm -ql foo

> While my point above is that none of the distributions (that I've used) 
> necessarily excel at documenting their local customizations, some do a 
> better job than others, and I'd recommend avoiding distributions that 
> make you go digging too much for the info.

Fedora puts README.fedora files in the /usr/share/doc/* folders.

> The flip side of that coin is that if you're mostly using one 
> distribution, then you spend the time once learning the 
> distribution-specific layout, and in the end that's no different from 
> learning the upstream project's layout.


That, and other reasons, are why I want to run the same thing on my 
server and my laptop.  Running the same distro (or variants thereof) at 
work is an added bonus, but not required.

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