This one time, at band camp, Darryl Caldwell said: > With the exception of a good fundraising system, most of the other apps > are the same as those required of other small biz/office setups. Without > namimg too many names here are the types that immediately come to mind: I'm going to try to name names, mostly to ask other people for suggestins as a starting point. > Network: > file/print servers (Samba and Netatalk...) Samba and netatalk, agreed. Perhaps also nfs, since we're talking about using linux desktops now :) > mailing list manager (Mailman...) Yes > content management systems Bricolage? As an aside, I've been thinking about packaging this, but the perl dependencies are a real pain to get working - I've always had to use CPAN installs of some of the modules, since the ones in Debian aren't wuite synched to what bricolage wants at a given moment. If anyone wants to collaborate, please let me know. > User/Network admin (thinking here about webmin...) I agree > Web caching Squid should do here, and I think there's a webmin module for it - the only argument I see against squid is the difficulty of setting it up, if you're non-technical. > IM system (Jabber...) Also probably: email for the domain (at least for larger non-profits) Probably something like exim or postfix, both are reasonably user-friendly to configure, and IIRC both have webmin modules. Sendmail seems a bit much, and is notoriously difficult to debug for people without background in it (Speaking from having to use it at a couple of sites . . . :) Print serving for the office network CUPS, I'm thinking - it has been reliably easy to set up, at least in the last year or so. Older versions were occasionally unreliable, but I have been impressed with everything since the version in Woody or so. Perhaps also some default iptables setup, with a note to the new admin that ports will need to be opened, and a pointer to the webmin module for iptables (or is it shorewall?) Maybe this is too ambitious, though, as firewalling is too much about individual needs. Perhaps a note to go configure the firewall before going on line would be better, although I guess it would be nice if the webmin modules or something were a little easier. > Desktop: > browsers Mozilla, or one of the clones, if only because the mozilla-likes manage to deal with broken html, broken servers, and all sorts of other MS-style standards breaking more gracefully than other browsers I have used. Personally, I prefer smaller, faster browsers, but I think that not having to worry about things like, "Oh Konqueror doesn't display this kind of page well, use a different browser" would be a plus. > email kmail? evolution? evolution has the advantage of the groupware components, but there's kroupware (IIRC) or somesuch to go with kmail. I so far have been happier with kmail than evolution for stability, but I am interested in other's opinions. > IM client gaim, I would guess, although I am not the one to ask. > productivity suites OpenOffice, I think wins this one hands down. Oddly, though, kword is the only thing I've found that handles WordPerfect docs, so it might be worth including it for that reason. > groupware/calendaring evolution, I guess, although others would be welcome. I think that sqwebmail also includes some sort of group calendaring in it's webmail interface. I think there are probably better solutions than that, though. > bookkeeping/accounting GnuCash? I will defer to others here as well. I'm also kind of assuming some kind of integrated desktop environment, like GNOME or KDE, as the interface for this. If other people think differently, let me know - I was just operating from the assumption that these are the more familiar of the linux WM's/SM's that I have used, at least from the perspective of people migrating from other OS's. IceWM also at least closely resembles something familiar. Of course, I could be off base here - I keep going back and forth on whether the initial learning curve, in exchange for different expectations, is better or worse than constantly noticing that IceWM, does not, in fact, behave like Windows, despite a superficial resemblance. Opinions welcome, please. Talk to you later, -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ,''`. Stephen Gran | | : :' : sgran@debian.org | | `. `' Debian user, admin, and developer | | `- http://www.debian.org | -----------------------------------------------------------------
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