Excellent! My next project will involve building a new site which will include some 'announcment and discussion forums', or, well, blogs. I wonder why I'm in the frame for this one? ;-)
I'm thinking WordPress for the blog engine. Seems to be all the go at the moment.
Even more excellent, if a little scary, is that all this is to run on a Linux box. I've not used Linux in anger, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm very much a command line man, so I'm sure I'll get on fine once I've got some momentum up. But getting started...
Which distro should I use? I quite fancy Debian, but I'm not sure that I'm hary chested enough for it. Would I better off with SuSE, or is that a bit desktop oriented? Is Ubuntu ready for prime-time? Or is there another distro altogether that I should be using?
Update 28th September: Ubuntu is looking promising, but I'm going with Debian. CDs burning as I write.
Posted to Software by Simon Brunning at September 27, 2004 02:56 PMThe only scary part about Debian, IMHO, is installation. Which isn't that bad -- it's no worse than most distros were a few years ago. Mostly X and other hardware can be a pain, and if it's a server maybe that doesn't even matter. And if you go with a commercial host, they might install it for you.
After installation I think Debian is quite easy, and generally harder to mess up compared to other distros.
Posted by: Ian Bicking on September 27, 2004 04:12 PMI love debian. I run stable (woody) on my desktop and testing (sarge) on my laptop. If I were to install a new version I would try the new Debian CD Installer (http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/). I used it for my laptop and it worked quite well (and that was beta-3, now it's up to release candidate 1). I also like the fact that security updates are as easy as
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
Chris
Debian is my distro of choice, as long as you don't want any of that nasty Java nonsense. It *will* work with the J word, it's just rather hard. If you stick to the LAMP model then it will work like a charm. Stick to the testing distribution for stable software (or stable if Sid has been released ...)
The installer isn't a problem. Burn a Knoppix CD, stick it in the drive and away you go. If it doesn't auto detect all of your hardware then get another box ;-) Once you can boot and run from the live CD it is really rather easy to then change to a hard drive installation. Instructions are on the Knoppix web site.
Posted by: Andy Todd on September 27, 2004 09:14 PMI've used Red Hat and Gentoo extensively. Gentoo was way better once it was up and running but waiting for the source to compile initially is too much of a headache for a commercial environment. I'm inclined to use Debian for my next Linux project at home and from what I've heard and read I don't think you'll go wrong with it.
Especially being the hairy-chested, command-line man that you are!
Posted by: Keith Pitty on September 28, 2004 06:45 AMIf you're looking at having blogs (plural), you might want to look beyond WordPress which is a single-blog system.
b2evolution is derived from the same base (b2/cafelog) as WordPress, but is much more full-featured. Which unfortunately means it takes a bit more thought to get set up. But it's probably worth it in the long run.
Posted by: Doug on September 28, 2004 10:03 PMErr, Simon, you wan't to install WordPress 1.2.1 as soon as it's released;
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/09/30/security_holes_in_wordpress_blogging_tool.html
Posted by: Andy Todd on October 3, 2004 11:29 AMI had similar problems with IMHO installations. I was unable to configure it and finally ended up with pbp message board.
Posted by: Uttaranchal on December 7, 2004 07:08 PM