CentOS - Oct 2005 - CentOS proviiding additional services > was Setting up Tomcat

This thread (... Tomcat ...) emphasizes the essential conundrom of
CentOS whose mission is to provide a community-based, well-maintained
and freely distributable version of the stable enterprise software
from the Well Known North American VENDOR (WKNAV). There is a
essential gap betweenthe community (I want lots of current packages)
and the WKNAV base (you get what I choose to provide). As CentOS
becomes more popular and reaches more desktop and server users, the
gap becomes more evident. And there is also the ever present clamor
for software that is not freely distributable due to licensing
considerations.

What I would recommend to assist those who love the CentOS stable base
but want more than CentOS can (legally or otherwise) provide is to
follow the documentation approach taken by Ubuntu. Ubuntu is based on
the Well Known GNU/Linux Provider (KKGLP) but goes well beyond what
the WKGLP chooses to privide. The community of Ubuntu has provided a
single document with brief HOWTOs and website references for a lot of
commonly needed services that are not provided by Ubuntu or the WKGLP.
Granted this document (based on Ubuntu 5.04) but not really updated
for Ubunto 5.10) is rapidly aging, but it is an example of what could
be a very valuable service. Ubunto also provides a well-organized list
of HOWTOs on its forums. This is the place for services like Tomcat
which have non-redistributable components. It's perfectly legal to
provide concise, up-to-date HOWTOs for software that cannot be
redistributed.

Perhaps someone (or a group of someones) would like to take on
organizing such a compendium of instructions on the CentOS Forum and
keeping the compendium up to date? Think how many hours of googling
and searching mail archives and copious RTFM could be saved! Instead
of firing off a mail to this list, you could first look in a well
known place on the Forum and avoid recasting a round object.

I'm not in a position to undertake such an endeavor. I keep current
with CentOS, and I want to see CentOS thrive, but I have only a
peripheral interest in CentOS, and that peripheral interst is a work
connection. My employer, like many others, prefers to have a
contractural arrangement (who can I kick around if it breaks even
though it never breaks?) and to pay big bucks to the WKNAV for that
privilege. CentOS is the closest thing I can get for my home system
without paying the WKNAV, and this I will not do.

Some food for thought.

--
Collins Richey
      Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code ... If you write
      the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not
      smart enough to debug it.
             -Brian Kernighan

On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 12:12, Collins Richey wrote:
> What I would recommend to assist those who love the CentOS stable base
> but want more than CentOS can (legally or otherwise) provide is to
> follow the documentation approach taken by Ubuntu.
What might make even more sense is to have scripted installs
included for all of the stuff that is really a free download
but must be pulled directly from the source site.  The
k12ltsp distro adds some of this with push-button icons
to install the MS web fonts, java, flash, acrobat reader,
realplayer, and their associated browser plugins, plus webmin.
Some are completely scripted, some drop you into the vendors 
click through agreement for the install.  The big advantage is
that the installers can be updated along with the rest of the
distro so aside from not having to wade through a dozen one-off
HOWTO's you don't have to deal with those instructions being out
of date and leading you astray, or accidentally working with
a different distro's HOWTO that won't work.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com

Collins Richey wrote:
><snip>
>
>Perhaps someone (or a group of someones) would like to take on
>organizing such a compendium of instructions on the CentOS Forum and
>keeping the compendium up to date? Think how many hours of googling
>and searching mail archives and copious RTFM could be saved! Instead
>of firing off a mail to this list, you could first look in a well
>known place on the Forum and avoid recasting a round object.
>
><more snips>
>
>
>  
>
I for one, might be able to help out in that respect.. while I am by no 
means a programmer, I do type quite well, and would not mind helping out 
if such an undertaking occurs... Being retired, I could devote some time 
to it without problem..



-- 
Snowman

Collins Richey wrote on Sat, 29 Oct 2005 11:12:51 -0600:
> What I would recommend to assist those who love the CentOS stable base 
> but want more than CentOS can (legally or otherwise) provide is to 
> follow the documentation approach taken by Ubuntu.
Why shouldn't this target audience not just install Ubuntu?

And, frankly, if I go thru that list at ubuntuguide, most of the 
questions/answers are already answered in the CentOS FAQs ("How do I add 
repos?"), are application specific ("How do I ssh into a
server"), are
generic questions (like "How do I add xyz to Gnome") that are answered
in
other external FAQs or so simple that they don't deserve an FAQ.

Nevertheless, putting up a wiki is a good proposal even if only one person 
would add to it ;-) Anyone who wishes, can then share his experience with 
"How I installed xyz on CentOS" and save others some time.

Kai

-- 
Kai Sch?tzl, Berlin, Germany
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