Wysenburg (.RiverCityCanada.com)

This computer is fully exposed to the Internet. It's an AMD K6 233 MHz system with 64 MB of RAM and a 4 GB HD. It doesn't have a sound card, floppy disk or CD. It main purpose is name server and email server for RiverCityCanada.com. The following sections don't explain the system, but rather have my opinions about the software on this computer.

Caldera OpenLinux eServer 2.3

The Linux operating system running on this computer is Caldera's eServer version 2.3. Before I settled on Caldera I tried Slackware, CorelLinux and a couple of others. One of the first reasons for trying Caldera was that I was able to download it from the internet for free. The reason I stayed with Caldera was the ease of installation and documentation. CorelLinux definitely has some good features, but the Cladera version seems to be a bit more mature. The final decision was the eServer version from Caldera. Since I was using the system as a server, this version made sense. If I was going to use it as a workstation, I probably would try CorelLinux again as WordPerfect is probably a better product then StarOffice or the other alternatives.

The other bonus about Caldera is that I have received a free copy of eServer. This is besides the downloaded version. You can choose to take a survey and enter a contest when you download the software. I did and received a free shrink wrapped copy of eServer and a T-shirt for participating. Not a bad deal. I would and have promoted them anyhow, but the free stuff gives me even more reason to do so. 

KDE (K Desktop Environment)

The other reason for using Caldera is KDE. Actually a few versions of Linux come with KDE, including CorelLinux. While Linux itself is a bit cryptic and intense, the KDE interface puts a happy face on the operating system. It has an open license similar to Linux so it's also free if you care to download it from www.kde.org. The easiest way to install it is with one of the versions of Linux. If fact you hardly know it's a separate produce if you do it that way.

Samba

While this particular system doesn't have Samba installed, that was one of the first reasons I tried Linux. I wanted a server in my Windows network and I wasn't willing to pay a couple of grand for it. I probably used up at least that amount in time spent learning the system, but then you can't say that Windows NT or Novell Netware won't cost you the same amount of time.

I did initially install Samba on a Linux system. It took a fantastic amount of time head scratching and reading the documentation. But I even went so far as to setup the domain server for the Windows network. It all worked fairly well. Then along came Caldera and made the whole thing easy. I shouldn't say that. By the time I switched to Caldera, I had read all the material. Their documentation does stay with main topics and gets you up and running with little hassle if you stick with the standard install. If you want to do extraordinary things, you might have to get a book or two on the subject.

Apache

Supposedly fifty percent of the web sites out there are running on Apache http servers. I don't have a lot of experience here, but my Apache server is running. I had a web site on it, but with the last upgrade, I didn't put it back on. Again with the Caldera install, the Apache server was installed and is ready for your web pages.

Other Servers

Caldera eServer comes with a pile of other services. A couple that I haven't mentioned yet are sendmail and bind. Really, the only two services that I have running on my Linux system at this time are these. While the web and ftp servers are running, there is no data on them. Sendmail is setup to service the email for RiverCityCanada.com. The name server (bind) is one of two that I have. This one acts as the slave for most of the domains I administer. While this system is totally exposed to the Internet, the other servers I have are behind a firewall. A show of faith on my part for the security features of Linux.

Overall Observations and Comments

Linux can have several personalities. Caldera eServer can be setup as a Internet server, file and print server or network server depending on what you want to use it for. Of course you can install the whole bundle if you want. While I did that in the past, I stuck with the essentials for the purpose I was going to use it. For this system it includes the name server and email server. http and ftp are there but not really used. For safety sakes I should turn them off.

The real beauty of it is, I threw together some old hardware I had laying around, installed the software and voila - an industrial strength server. While it's just idling along with the current load, Windows NT 4.0 server would have choked on the same system and Windows 2000 server would probably refuse to install. I run into a lot of Linux users on newsgroups that are serving 200+ users on the same hardware. The bonus is the email server. Windows NT server doesn't have one.

I'm going to use this experience to upgrade small pier to pier networks that I manage to a server based network using Samba as the domain controller. The benefit is centralized administration of the network. The cost is negligible as I can recycle one of the older workstations as the server. The cost of the eServer software is about a tenth of the alternatives and there is no user limit.