[HLUG] ClearOS

[Julian Robbins]

Matt Jones wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 11:38 AM, Paul Stenning <paul at sp-tech.co.uk> wrote:
>   
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Has anyone here used ClearOS, formerly Clarkconnect?  It is a packaged
>> small business server including file sharing, domains (active
>> directory), web server, mail, gateway etc.  It is based on CentOS I
>> think, with a web-based front end.  The basic product is open source but
>> they sell commercial support and you have to pay an annual fee for
>> updates to the anti-malware etc.
>>     
Hi

I tried out ClarkConnect many years ago, and it wasn't bad at all then, 
circa 2004. I've always been surprised why this and SME Server haven't 
fared better really. I think its a lack of marketing; the main linux 
distro's always getting much more press, and the fact that very 
occasionally you couldn't quite configure it how you wanted with their 
GUI. Ubuntu Server version gets vast amounts more coverage than 
ClarkConnect, ClearOS, but although powerful, is not that easy to setup. 
ClarkConnect had been going a quite a long while, (going back to 2000), 
AFAIR, so has quite a history behind it.

SME server from Mitel, was another, pretty similar in scope and 
features. I haven't seen it for a while but its appears to be here 
http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:About. The project looks far more 
home spun than i remember, and the wiki a bit out of date too, but it 
may be worth looking at.

>> I only found out about it the other day from an article in Micro Mart
>> magazine.  I've never seen it mentioned in Linux Format or in the LUG.
>>
>> I have just downloaded it and installed it in Virtual Box.  First
>> impressions are that it seems nicely put together with a more
>> user-friendly interface than Webmin.  Worth further investigation.
>>     
Webmin we always found tried to be a bit of everything, but having to 
cater for so many potential distro versions, was always going to be 
difficult to keep on top of. I here its doing well again now, but Webmin 
was more an easier way to config a server that was setup, rather than 
being able to use it to set one up from scratch.

>> One of my clients wants a small business server for mail and file
>> sharing, and I am reluctant to go down the Microsoft Small Business
>> Server route, but other options such as Ubuntu Server with Webmin are
>> too difficult to manage.
>>     
If you get any success with this Paul, can you post what you find to the 
mailing list, or perhaps put on a quick presentation  sometime? I'm sure 
there's a few of us would like to have an easier to setup linux server 
without having to go into the details quite so deeply sometimes.

Julian