Less than a year after this post (  http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect-server-opensuse-11.1-ispconfig-3-p5 )- some of the repositories for the suggested critical suse files are no longer available.  This is a simple case of you get what you pay for.  Here in 2010 – I followed the links for the downloads and repeatedly got reponses similar to this:

rpm -i http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/mail/openSUSE_11.0/i586/getmail-4.7.6-1.4.i586.rpm
error: skipping http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/mail/openSUSE_11.0/i586/getmail-4.7.6-1.4.i586.rpm – transfer failed – Unknown or unexpected error

Yeah no kidding!  This is where the entire idea of trying to do business using these kinds of guides just totally sucks.  No offense to the author (I extend my gratitude!) that made this great guide for setting up ispconfig – I know it’s not his fault, but hell, what are the rest of us to do when we find magic ‘do it all’ articles like this to get our linux glands salivating only to find that the sources have gone away?  (If he tried to execute these instructions today, in May 2010 – he’d be embarassed, and probably pull the article altogether – which is a HUGE SHAME!  This article is a serious piece of work!  Note to self, if you ever make a post like this online, save the sources to your own website/repository, and post those links instead – but that introduces even more complex issues though).

dammit every single time… you run into a script install error in linux with a cryptic message like that… and yet continue the process…and then nothing works after finishing the manual procedure what does the linux-world community expect?  We’re not all geeks, and even if we are, we do NOT have all this time sitting on the clock to chase down goblins that are created simply because somebody didn’t pay for his hosting.

There is no answer imo – the only thing I can say is… even though I hate to admit it… windows, beats everything else hands down.  Not once have I ever had to find a source or rpm file for a program, from another server, and/or manually put together source files for compilation using gcc or whatever with windows.  EVER.  This is why there is such good value with linux hosting companies – because they’ve taken the high road and figured it out for us wanna-be’s, so we PAY for custom linux configurations!. (and it ain’t free!) – Guess what.  With Microsoft Windows, you pay money.  With linux, you will pay with your life.  Until someone comes along with a really great way to make all this stuff work for free (so unlikely), you will continue using Windows.  My latest copy of Win XP cost me 10 bucks on Ebay, got fully updated to the latest service pack for free, and I’m cruising and using just great.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, the server that I use that generates 100% of my income, is Linux.  This is still not free, because I pay for hosting every month, and get the benefit of the expertise of people at theplanet.com, whom set up the WebHostManager and Cpanel software… (Ok I pay a license fee for that too), and then got the facilities etc… There is NO free ride.  If you want performance, perfection, etc… works when you want it, you will pay for it.

This is why Linux as it stands sucks – because nobody makes a dime off of it. Perhaps this is why there is nothing but complaints and configuration standards being cross-hatched in the many many different versions of Linux.  Yes it’s a great idea on the back side, but as a world wide os that can adapt to the masses, forget it.  It will never happen.

I’d rather have a paid for version of something that will WORK today when I need it, rather than one I need to troubleshoot for xxx hours on my own for free – when in actuality, it costs me thousands to get working and with upkeep because of bs revisions to core code.

Sorry for the rant, but I love Linux, can troubleshoot most everything related, but the state of this software, as a desktop o/s, has progressed since the 1980’s, is pitiful. Nobody makes a dime (Oh man the open source movement is everything right!?)- of course it sucks.  Why do programmers invest so much time in this stuff?  I understand the love of the game as a programmer, but why why why?

Cheers.