VMware tools and Debian 5.0
While testing the various groupware solutions I also decided to take a look at supported software on my vmware server environment. The first thing drawing my attention is the lack of support for Debian, Ubuntu/RHEL/SUSE are nicely listed, but there is no option for Debian.
So I tried installing anyways, choosing custom kernel 2.6.x series installing Debian 5.0 Lenny.
As anyone who uses VMware often would agree, the virtual machines work a lot better/faster when you have VMware Tools installed. This seemed to be the first hurdle to take, so I decided to track my effort for educational puposes.
- Go to VM > Install VMware Tools
- On the CLI type: 'mkdir /mnt/cdrom'
- Type 'mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom'
- Change to a temporary directory (ie /tmp)
- 'tar xvf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-7.8.5-156735.tar.gz' (or the appropriate version you're using)
- change directory to the vmware tools using 'cd ./vmware-tools-distrib'
- Execute the installation using './vmware-install.pl'
- Press enter at the questions to accept default values, or choose custom locations.
- ....Wait.... (Allow up to 5 minutes to complete)
- Accept the default values for further installation steps
- On the config script you will get the message "none of the prebuilt modules is suitable etc."
- Press ctrl+c to abort the config script
- Now you will have to install linux header, build-essentials and gcc using 'apt-get install gcc build-essential linux-header-`uname -r` '
- Set the correct GCC version using:
- 'rm /usr/bin/gcc' and 'ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-4.1 /usr/bin/gcc'
- After this step invoke the config script again using /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl
- Accept all default values
- For smoother network support the use of the vmxnet driver advised, instructions ar elisted at the end of the config script:
- Stop networking: '/etc/init.d/networking stop'
- Remove the old driver: 'rmmod pcnet32'
- Add the new driver: 'modprobe vmxnet'
- Start networking '/etc/init.d/networking start'
- Reboot your Virtual Machine
As alternative to all this, you can try the open-vm package which has an excellent installation manual located at: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=39005#p229783
Good luck and enjoy your fully functional Debian Installation.
Groupware roundup #1
As e-mail, communication and exchange seems to be growing rapidly it is interesting to spot some of the novelty's on the market.
One of these novelties in my opinion is the recent rise (or expansion) of linux based groupware solutions. For an impressions here's an -incomplete- list with the most popular groupware solutions, and their (dis) advantages:
- eGroupware - flexible, opensource and a complete solution but a pain to install and maintain due to absence of installer packages that actualy work correctly with mailsupport
- Kolab - versatile, fully expandable, fully opensource but the lack of good documentation make it a pain in the ass to even try to install
- Open-Xchange - supported, nicely documented but partly closed source and a pricey solution even compared to exchange!
- Zimbra - very good support, active community and a free personal version available but pricey solution when implementing and the current development seems to be slacking in supporting new linux distributions
- Scalix - currently the most promising solutions, very good documentation and active community, free personal version available including outlook connector, but missing debian/ubuntu packages as well as a resource hogger due to the java architecture
- Group-Office - very nice interface, good standard documentation, cheap license model but administration is quite limited in options, meaning you will have to edit a lot of files manualy (for instance when setting up a smarthost)
- Citadel - easy to use and install groupware, fully opensource, fast usuage and lightweight but interface will not appeal to everyone and administration seems to be cluttered
THis is by no means a complete list, but gives you an impression of whats available, possible and impossible 
.
For all solutions, howver, it seems to be a real problem to get a good and fast working outlook connection supporting addressbook, calendar, notes and e-mail like exchange provides. The one supporting this as one of the best compared to its cost will be Scalix, as their "Premium Users" include the outlook connector acting as exchange component working really well and fast.
However as I said before, sclaix does not seems to have any debian or ubuntu based packages (debs) and instead o this they release a manual solution. As always with popular packages someone tries to find a better solution for this and so did Rene Hadler. He created a python based solution for installing scalix on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, Ubuntu 8.10 and Debian 4 (etch). This solutions works brilliantly, but for most of the users the german language makes it hard to understand the installer, and that's where I came in. Now there is a fully translated version of this scalix installer available, and because Rene Hadler's website seems to be on and off I will provide a mirror here including instructions on the installation. So click on the link below for complete instructions and a mirror to the installer.