Introduction

This page contains an overview of our first meeting. If I missed something, misspelled something, or whatever please feel free to make corrections.

Attendees

• MattGalvin as mgalvin - meeting leader

• Mario Danic as Pygi - meeting leader

• FabioMassimoDiNitto as fabbione

• AnteKaramatic as ivoks

• Thomas Gelf as Pazzo
• Reza Mohammadi as Reza_M
• dabaR
• ssh_rdp
• dmk
• [Chameleon]-PDA

• SteveMyers

• If I missed you (sorry) please feel free to add yourself.

Agenda Topics

Introduction to the Project

We began with a quick intro to the idea of this project and where information about our efforts can be found.

Instant server wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuInstantServer
Meeting agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuInstantServerMeetingAgendas
Meeting summaries: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuInstantServerMeetingSummaries 

Overall Mission Statement

We discussed needing a proper mission statement so that users understand exactly what it is we are trying to do. Some vaild questions were raised on the -devel mailing list and our mission statement will answer these and other questions up front to avoid as much confusion as possible.

Based on the ubuntu server foo bar, our goal is to make deployment of server as easy as possible for less experienced sysadms and users, but also maintaining a great range of flexibility for further customization.

We will craft a proper mission statement and update UbuntuInstantServer.

Target Audience

We discussed who our target audience is and they are:

• server admin wannabe's
• to-be-admins
• people who need specific services up and running very quickly (this will help people under tight deadlines and the impatient)
• maybe even developer workstations for developers who work on, i.e., web dev on their local workstations (I do this and it would be nice to say apt-get install instant-web-server, instead of having to install everything manually)

For the first go at this we most likely, as suggested by fabbione, keep our audience small...

Benifits Overview

• fast installs
• easy for beginners
• nice robost base to build on
• reduce new user confusion/frustration, new users don't need to know/search for what packages they don't even know they may or may not need
• two types of installation (Easy Instant and Advanced Instant)

What Instant Servers do we need?

• UbuntuInstantWebServer (NOTE: s/WebServer/LAMP/ ?)

• UbuntuInstantSourceControlServer

• UbuntuInstantDatabaseServer

• UbuntuInstantGroupwareServer

Instant Server specs /Server components, etc.

• UbuntuInstantWebServer

  • Apache2, PHP 5/mod_php, mod_perl2, mod_python, etc... To Be Continued

• UbuntuInstantSourceControlServer

  • Apache2, Subversion (Bazaar?), Trac, etc... TBC

• UbuntuInstantDatabaseServer

  • Apache2, MySQL, phpMySQLAdmin, etc... TBC

• UbuntuInstantGroupwareServer

  • Hula, Jabber, etc... TBC

NOTE: this components/packages are just here as an example, please

• don't take them as something set in stone

How can we optimize each Instant Servers performance?

This may be a can of worms we don't want to open right now. The server tuned kernel may be enough for most cases anyway.

How will we distribute? ISO? apt-get install instant* meta-packages, etc...

Ok, this is the part that has changed mostly. A python or shell script will be run the first time the system boots. It will ask you what Instant server do you want to install, and what type of installation would you take (Easy Instant or Advanced Instant) or just leave the core server. If you choose Instant-Webserver for example and use Easy Instant the script would download default packages for Instant-Webserver, install them and configure. On the other hand, if you choose to go Advanced instant, you would have the option to choose do you want to have PHP 4 or PHP 5 installed, MySQL 4.1 or MySQL 5, etc. Leaving only the core server is also an option, and leaves default installation untouched. A benefit of this approach is much greater flexibility and the thing that we can gain benefit from the work that MOTU's are doing. Only packages from MAIN will be used.

Instant Media Center - MythTV, etc...

Not now, its a nice idea but lets stick with server stuff. Additionally we are trying to stick with stuff in main that can/will be on the install cd. Most multimedia stuff is in universe and multiverse.

Attracting additional contributors

How do we get more people involved with the project? Based on the -devel mailing list discussion and this meeting we already have a few people very interested in the idea and who want to help out. Glad to have you all aboard As we begin to make progress, hopefully more people will take an interest in the idea once they see we are serious about the projects success. If you would like to get involved please join us at IRC and/or contact me or Matt at our email adresses.

Conclusion - Any other business, the floor is open

Since this project will be largely based on the work being done for Ubuntu Server, we will be continuing our work in the #ubuntu-server channel. There is no reason to have two seperate channels since we will be working closely together. Please meet up on #ubuntu-server from now on.

NOTE: #ubuntu-instant still exists, and several people are still hanging out there.

• This isn't necessarily a problem, just know that we base our work on Ubuntu server.

I had to run, some discussion continued, if someone could fill this in or send me the log it would be much appreciated.

Thanks for a great meeting everyone!